Queensmen
by Araceil
Summary: In the wake of a V-day that went off without a hitch, Harry Potter picks up the pieces of a broken London and hunts for a reason why, attracting all manner of attention, from all manner of people. Slash. AU. Non-Kingsman!Eggsy.
1. Chapter 1

**Queensmen**

 _ **000**_

 _In the wake of a V-day that went off without a hitch, Harry Potter picks up the pieces of a broken London and hunts for a reason why, attracting all manner of attention, from all manner of people. Slash. AU. Non-Kingsman!Eggsy._

 _ **000**_

 **Chapter One**

His ears were ringing.

His brain was boiling.

His blood felt like ice.

The world was washed red with violence, with hate, and action. A writhing yawning _screaming_ tide of thrashing bodies, flying blood, broken glass, and the tearing cacophony of a million innocents dying, killing, and withering.

And just as quickly as it had come...

It left.

The acid burn, the throbbing ring, gone.

As if a blind-fold had suddenly been pulled from around their eyes, as if hot water had just been thrown over them.

The world was all at once too bright, and they were drunken prisoners staggering out into the light for the first time in decades, their blood too hot for their bodies as they panted, aching chests heaving as the world orientated, as the light faded...

As they stared at the red washed world around them.

At the broken bodies, and shattered homes, at the world crumbled to fractured confusion and horror at their feet.

Harry James Potter stared around him in numb bewilderment, his heart thundering in his ears like the drumming of a Goblin warband, his blood too hot for his veins, his throat ragged and hoarse, choking on every breath that rasped its way free of his lungs.

Leicester Square.

Painted with gore, filled with bodies.

He coughed on his own breath, shaking violently as he slowly stumbled in a circle, trying to get his bearings, trying to get... get stock on the situation. There were just...

So many bodies.

He coughed, squinting against the blazing light that spun and wove dizzyingly across his vision, he blinked rapidly, trying to focus.

A woman neatly cut in half lay in front of him, her hands were broken bleeding lumps of flesh, her legs were four feet away, her innards spilled out across the pavement like wet tangles of sillystring and seaweed.

 _Sectumsempra_ , he categorised in a daze even as his eyes slid to another body. _Incendio to the head_. There wasn't much of the charred flesh remaining, but if it had been Fiendfyre there wouldn't even have been the charred matchstick like knot upon the charcoal thread he had for a neck.

Odd how most of the bodies were killed via spell damage.

Oh. That was Daphne Greengrass.

Harry stared at his former classmate in mute incomprehension.

What was she doing on this side of the Leaky?

There was a bloodied fork in her hand, and it looked like someone had beaten her head in with a brick. That someone was still holding it, right next to her, with her throat wide open, slashed with a knife as opposed to spell fire. She had stab marks from a fork on her left cheek. Had Daphne tried to rip her eye out with a fork?

Harry looked down at himself, and immediately felt light headed.

Blood.

It was everywhere.

He was painted with gore from foot to head.

He was shaking, he realised distantly, even as he lifted his hands, staring at the slick, dripping scarlet digits in horror. There were bits of flesh under his fingernails. His finger was broken. He couldn't feel it.

He stared around him.

There was something horrible happening in him, he could feel it. A dark, clawing, sensation starting at the pit of his stomach and dragging itself up through his throat, thick and suffocating, raw and dry and heavy, talons digging into his flesh as it heaved itself upwards. Barbed tendrils reaching out and _digging_ into his brain, peeling it back, clawing into him, digging.

He felt an unravelling within him as the numbness, the confusion, the brightness were picked away; threads of thought and feeling coming free, and something terrible approaching, something _awful..._

 _I did this._

And he screamed. And screamed. And screamed.

 _ **000**_

There was no sound, no voice, no thought, that prompted him to drag himself to his feet, to wipe his eyes regardless of the blood on his hands. There was no thought, no rationale, no driving need to – he was numb to the core. With neither thought nor emotion to drive him as his aching body moved.

It was just what he did. What he'd always done.

He picked himself up, wiped his tears, and he looked for survivors.

He didn't know what else to do.

A spell upon his cracked glasses, men and women sifted out from under bodies, laid out upon conjured stretchers as he laid Healing spell after Healing spell upon their broken bodies. Levitating a train of the groaning living behind him as he picked through the streets in search of survivors.

Eventually he ended up outside the National Art Gallery in Trafalgar Square.

The fountains were red with blood, bodies choking the water, some were drowned, others were not.

Harry conducted his train of survivors to a stop and began to clear the bodies to one side, laying them out neatly side by side, and then setting his survivors down. He could see men and women in the distance just milling around in a shell shocked stupor and silently picked his way over to them.

He gently wrapped an arm around a young woman, she couldn't have been older than twenty two, her once curly brown hair now lank and ratty with blood as grey eyes stared at him in blank numbness. He guided her back to Trafalgar Square, to the other survivors, and sat her down on the steps leading up to the Gallery, tucking a conjured blanket over her shoulders. And then he went back out.

Distant voices could be heard screaming and crying now as the shock seemed to be fading into horror and pain.

Harry guided men and women back to the Square, tending their injuries, wrapping them in blankets, doing what he could for those he could. Bringing more, and more people to the Square. No longer even caring enough to be shy about his use of magic, he used it openly and often. He conjured water and cloths that he used to clean bloody faces and hands, he healed injuries, broken bones, and torn skin.

Kingsley found him first, limping out of the side-streets, bloodied and grim.

They didn't hug, nor did they speak.

Long, dull looks were exchanged, and Harry kept walking, leaving the Square once again in search of survivors, and Kingsley fell into step behind him.

When they returned, they found that one of the survivors had hotwired one of the near-by cars, they had the doors and windows open, and music playing loudly on the stereo, attracting anyone still in the area.

Hermione found him next, she was limping heavily, and there was a bloody rag tied over one of her eyes, but the moment she saw him, she sprinted across the Square and threw her arms around him, clinging desperately to his bloody form. She trembled violently in his arms.

They raided the Gallery café, bringing out endlessly expanded jugs of tea and coffee for the survivors to nurse.

Food was raided from near-by houses, but no one was willing to leave the rest of the group when the sun began to set. That night, they camped in Trafalgar Square, huddled around campfires that the magic users created. And more people showed up, drawn by the light, welcomed with hot drinks, and blankets, and medical aid. As if stumbling into a dream, or a different world. Confused and dazed, Harry collected them and brought them to the heart of the camp where he washed their faces and hands, where he knitted their skin together and mended their broken bones. Where Hermione fed and watered them and bundled them in kind words and soft blankets. Where Kingsley stood watch, tall and silent, and let them sleep in peace, knowing that they were safe.

With the first rays of dawn, Harry woke, just as numb as yesterday.

And then they dealt with the bodies.

 _ **000**_

Forty million, four hundred and five thousand dead in England alone. Give or take a couple of tens of thousands.

Of that number, twenty five million were killed by magic users.

The secret was well and truly out thanks to Death Day. Fiendfyre still raged across the east end of London, its caster probably long dead, consumed by their own inferno. Until there was a heavy rainfall, there was no way to stop it beyond containment. But as they worked, he and whatever others that could scrape themselves together to help, they found more and more survivors. Shell shocked, injured, or just too scared of what might happen to them in the aftermath of the tragedy.

But under it all, they worked on piles of corpses. On top of mass graves the kind that England hadn't seen since the plagues. There was just no time, no money, and no _space_ to bury them all – no one remaining to even perform the proper funeral preparations to the bodies. Not even to pick them up and transport them properly. What few people that were able to drove piles upon piles of bodies in dump-trucks, vans, pick-ups, and even JCB road diggers to the burn sites. Places like the Kia Oval, Wembley Stadium, and Emirates Stadium became burning grounds. Mounds of corpses, covered in petrol, set on fire, thick greasy black smoke blotting the sky line for days, weeks on end as more and more bodies were fished out of houses, office blocks, railway tunnels, subways.

It was the hospitals and the schools that Harry decides are the worst. Because sometimes... he found survivors.

And the most horrifying thing was that whatever had caused Death Day, whatever had triggered such towering uncontrollable rage, had not worked on the children. Had not worked on the mentally disabled. Had not worked on those with brain trauma.

But it _had_ worked on their parents, on their teachers, on their doctors and their nurses and all those people who were there to help them, protect them, love them.

It is the children, and those souls too lost in their own minds to understand why or how it happened, that tear into Harry the deepest. That hurt him the most.

It only galvanises him to work harder.

They work out of the Gallery and Trafalgar Square, steadily taking over the surrounding buildings. The Square has become a make-shift hospital and soup-kitchen, the Gallery itself now a homeless shelter with beds for anyone who cannot face the thought of returning home, or those who have no home to return to.

Word spreads through London and slowly people come and go.

Things pick up.

But the world is still reeling in the aftermath, and while they try to get their bearings, Harry sits, carefully braiding a silent little girl's long hair as she clutches a bloody teddybear to her chest. And he wants _answers_.

 _ **000**_

Eggsy wondered what God he must have pissed off in a past life to end up like this.

Barely two weeks out of the joint and the world goes to shit. The two mates he went down to protect killed by his own bare hands. The mum he tried to protect, killed by _her_ own hands; hands that killed the daughter she tried to protect. Protect from the husband that Eggsy killed along with his mates.

He didn't know what to expect when one of the Relief Workers found him. It wasn't like he'd bothered to even try leaving the Black Prince once he'd finished hauling the bodies outside to be picked up like so much trash. Once he'd said his final goodbyes to Ryan and Jamal, once he'd given Dean's body a long hard stare, unable to even muster up a sting of anger toward the pathetic cunt.

He had thought about killing himself, it looked pretty damn attractive at that moment in time, but he'd never been the type of guy to give up. Some small little part of him screamed and railed against the idea of taking his life. Not in fear. But in anger. His mother had _given_ him his life, and she couldn't bear the thought of taking the life of her children, to the point where she couldn't even live with herself after doing so. And even though she was gone, Eggsy knew it would have broken her fucking heart if he followed her like that. He thought of going to help people, but... he doesn't know how to offer, or even ask, and he doesn't think that anyone but the Relief Workers even know what they're doing, or why, and he just can't... muster the drive to get up. To do anything.

So he sits, and he waits. Like everyone else, he decides. Waiting for what, he doesn't know. For the other shoe to drop? For the bodies to stand back up and try to eat their faces? For some fuckin' moustache twirling villain to appear on their TV screens and declare himself the mastermind behind Death Day? It didn't matter what, they were all waiting for it, the fallout, the consequences of that day.

But it doesn't come. Not really.

Unless this is it?

He was young, probably a bit younger than he was, baggy clothes, plain T-shirt and black hoodie, jeans, dirty off-white sneakers, wild black hair, pale skin that's bruised and scabbed, but clean. And those eyes. Fuck. A bottle green thousand yard stare that felt like fuckin' frostbite.

This was their leader according to the rumours.

Those eyes were hard to mistake, even from word of mouth.

Eyes that take him in, bloodied, dirty, crumpled in the corner of a bloodstained booth, not having even bothered to clean himself up, his eyes not quite shellshocked, but hallow and empty. As if someone had scooped the life out of him, torn his soul out, leaving just a husk behind that was barely even human.

He takes him in, meets his eyes, that blank, empty void. And understands. And accepts.

Eggsy thinks he should hate him for it. But he can't muster the energy.

His feet are quiet on the sticky, blood stained floor. Eggsy has made no attempt to clean up after his one man massacre, there are still teeth somewhere, lost in the dried blood congealed across the floorboards.

Green reaches out and takes his hand.

"Come with me," he says, almost gently, almost harshly, and Eggsy can't find it in himself to argue. Green's hand is small, and hot against his skin, and it feels _alien_. "Come," he repeats, and pulls, just a little.

And Eggsy gets to his feet, because he doesn't care what happens now.

Maybe this is his shoe dropping.

He is lead out of the Black Prince, and into the light of day.

 _ **000**_

 **Surprisingly dark, no?**

 **I've had this idea for a while now, what if Eggsy hadn't thought to call Harry when he was arrested for Joyriding? What then? Well, Valentine's plan would have probably gone off without much of a problem for one. There will be a lot of stuff happening in this so stay tuned.**

 **I'll explain everything, eventually.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Queensmen**

 _ **000**_

 _In the wake of a V-day that went off without a hitch, Harry Potter picks up the pieces of a broken London and hunts for a reason why, attracting all manner of attention, from all manner of people. Slash. AU. Non-Kingsman!Eggsy._

 _ **000**_

 **Chapter Two**

Valentines Day no longer existed.

February tenth was now known as Death Day, the day the world came to an end.

Unlike what most would think, February was the coldest month of the year for England, seeing everything from flooding to frost and three feet of snow in places. It was just there luck that in twenty fifteen the North Atlantic Drift experienced a shift in temperature, that coupled with the change to the climate around England itself due to the mass burnings...

The number of people that nearly froze to death almost rivalled the number of people that took their own lives.

Power was intermittent and unreliable without the men and women needed to regulate it, Southern Electric had all but toppled, only a handful of electricians were working tirelessly to try and keep the power going in key locations. Hospitals and shelters became those key locations. What was left of Southern Gas were scrambling to log and track the service mains around those areas, making sure there were no leaks, no potential for catastrophic explosions and fires that could destroy streets, blocks, perhaps even entire cities. The water board could operate without human interference for a total of a month, and with most of its workers dead and gone, it was only a matter of time before they lost running water in most of the cities – they wouldn't be able to combat any fires if they did crop up.

But it wasn't just gas, electric, and water that proved to be lost without the people to maintain it, fairly soon, with the big freeze well under way – the sewage lines began to freeze, began to burst, and flood. And no one really knew how to repair them.

Harry could only be thankful that Hermione had survived, that Kingsley had found his way back to them. As the days stretched into weeks, more and more of his friends managed to find their way to his side. Most of the DA, their eyes hallow, that same empty screaming void that he saw whenever he passed a mirror, whenever he looked another human soul in the eye. And between them, with the aid and guidance of those non-magicals who knew better, they made it work.

They picked up the pieces. And then they moved on.

Hannah Abbott reported that Hogsmeade and Hogwarts were entirely unaffected by Death Day, no one, not even the teachers, had gone postal. They hadn't even heard about it until the first of the bloodied shellshocked Ministry workers Apparated in looking for the remains of their family members. They had the school on lockdown at present until they could be certain that things were safe.

Harry wished he could tell her it was. And his silence was all she needed to hear as she nodded grimly, her eyes still bright, still light, untouched by the horror that was Death Day.

She had not taken a single life, and for that, Harry hated her. Just a little bit.

The Ministry though... There wasn't much of it left. Or St Mungos.

Harry stared at the remains of the Hospital and knew, even with him currently in Birmingham coordinating relief efforts modelled on what Harry, Hermione, and Kingsley were doing in London, that Neville had been visiting his parents when Death Day hit. The whole building was consumed by sword-like thorns. The charms on his glasses were dark. There were no survivors.

With England gone to shit, Harry took over what was left of the magical Government, what was left of the _muggle_ Government – what with the Royal family missing for the last two weeks before the event, and Parliament only now no where to be found. Patroni became the default method of communication with the power being so far gone, the new Valentine company SIM cards could only provide free internet and calls if the phones themselves had power, and by the third week in, no one had really been in a mood or a position to even charge their phones. Thankfully, the Relief Workers, as he and the other magic users who had hauled themselves up out of the rubble and began to drag others up with them were now being called, were easily found and identified, allowing messages to be passed from group to group, city to city, without problem.

Oh it wasn't all hunky dory, not everyone was willing to pull together. Lootings were common, at least after the shock wore out and hysteria began to rise over shortages of food; a few women were raped when apocalypse doomsayers began wailing about how humanity would die out, that they no longer had sustainable population numbers – Hermione tracked down each and every one of the rapists and set them on fire. She didn't kill them. But she made sure they would _never_ do such a thing _ever_ again. If any of them were physically capable of getting an erection with all the scar tissue on their groins, Harry would have been surprised. Most annoyingly of all, were those people who blamed them, the magic users, for Death Day. Screaming about how it _must_ have been them, about witches and the devil and how they were unnatural and blah, blah-blah, blah-blah.

Harry had been entirely unprepared for the little old lady in her crochet shawl and half-moon spectacles and her dirty slippers to try and stab him with a kitchen knife when he turned to hand a cup of tea to her neighbour.

The blade had gone through his side before anyone had realised what happened, and a split second later, aid workers were all over him, all over her. She was screaming, wild, near-incoherent and sobbing as she was restrained and taken somewhere else. And then Hermione was there, her hair a wild seething halo of brown as spells fell from her lips and her wand, knitting his flesh back together, her single remaining eye fierce and almost manic as she finished and turned to follow the old woman's progress as she was taken away.

For a moment, Harry worried that she would do something she would regret, but Hermione had always possessed more self-control than he had. She swallowed down her rage, packed it into a box, and used it as fuel to push her to her feet.

Harry ended up with a fucking guard because of that incident.

The young man he found within the shattered pub last week, the one that had been lurking in the background of his life ever since, awkwardly trying to help but not quite sure how, or even what to do until Harry dumped things in his arms and told him what to do. Turned out he used to be in training for the Royal Marines. Out of those that were interviewed, Kingsley declared him the only one really qualified to do the job, not that there hadn't been a stupid number of volunteers, it seemed as though almost eighty-percent of the survivors had thrown their names down to be his bodyguard when word got out about the attempted murder. It was only both his, and Hermione's, staunch declaration that the old woman shouldn't face reprisal for the attack as she was _clearly_ unhinged from the events of Death Day, that prevented her from being publicly dragged out and lynched by the men and women who now felt they owed their lives to the Relief Workers.

"So," Harry muttered as he washed his hands in a basin, "What do I call you?" he asked flatly, looking up at his new bodyguard. Trafalgar Square had become too small for the sheer number of people that passed in and out of it, it was a source of comfort in the beginning and now operates as a soup-kitchen and shelter, but as of this moment in time, the Relief Workers, and their non-magical counterparts the Aid Workers, moved to a kind of tent-city just further down the road to St James' Park. There was talk of taking it further and moving into Buckingham Palace, but none of the magic-users would entertain it – the ancient vows between the Royal family and the Ministry prevented them from ever setting foot within the Palace, or rather, any location lived in by an individual possessing royal heritage, without permission. It was old magic, still strong magic, and they didn't want to incur its wrath.

The young man shifted from foot to foot, he was pale and gaunt, his face sharp lines and hard edges and too old too soon and just _tired_. And his eyes, that same dark emptiness. He has cleaned up some since Harry pulled him blinking and stumbling into the light, plain grey tracksuit bottoms, too baggy, too short, his mismatched socks can be seen crammed into a battered pair of blood splattered vans, he wore a black fleece under a washed out dirty green New York hoodie. His hands are jammed into his pockets, and both fleece and hoodie are zipped up to his chin in an effort to keep a little more warmth in him by hiding the back of his neck. His brown hair is messy, and unkempt and just that shade too long to be deliberate and there's still scabs and yellow shadows of healing bruises.

"Eggsy," he answers evasively, not looking him in the eyes, too conscious of his own emptiness, afraid to see it mirrored back at him. This one doesn't look people in the eye, Harry has noticed, not unless someone is threatening him. And then the ice comes up, and his gaze turns to flint and steel, and the hammer of a gun ready to fire.

"Eggsy," Harry repeats slowly, before drying his hands, "Call me Harry. We're working out of Holloway today, make sure you get something to eat before we leave."

And that was that.

Eggsy expected more questions, objections even, Harry looked like he was the type of guy Ryan and he would've jacked for money back in secondary, terrorised for kicks. But Harry, as Eggsy soon finds out, is a fucking machine.

He doesn't sleep, he _barely_ eats, and the only time he stands still is when he's looking for survivors with those magic glasses of his. He doesn't talk about himself (not many people do these days), doesn't complain, or show pain, or discomfort. He is up and down London co-coordinating men and women like Eggsy's old SO but without the ego, or the Birmingham accent.

At first, Eggsy's is too nervous, uncertain of his role, and though he would never admit it, a little intimidated, to say anything to the wizard. He just follows along after him, quiet and watchful, doing what he's told, worrying silently when the food that one of the aid workers brought the wizard ends up in the hands of someone else. But on day five, Eggsy has to catch him when he nearly goes arse over teakettle down a flight of concrete steps just outside of Camden. He's pretty sure his balls launched themselves firmly up into his throat when he saw the wizard stumble dizzily, and then his eyes rolled up at the top of those stairs. He's probably going to have bruises on his throat from where Eggsy grabbed the back of his neck and yanked him backwards. It's that same fear that has him matching the wizard back to the room set aside for him at the National Gallery that he never uses, ignoring all of his protests (and threats), and shoves him into a bed that used to be a table-lamp.

After that, well, Harry hardly seems so scary anymore. Not when one moment he was complaining like a cranky toddler about doing to bed, rubbing his face, swaying drunkenly in place – and then dead to the world, wrapped around a lumpy, ugly as sin, post-it yellow pillow, fast asleep, five minutes later. Eggsy could only snort in disbelief at himself as he was forced to tuck the stubborn little bastard in so he didn't catch a cold or something. He had been intimidated – by this? Harry was titchy. Only a little taller than Eggsy's chin and he wasn't the tallest of blokes to begin with. Whipcord thin, and about as muscular as the average malnourished alleycat. Hell, Eggsy could put his thumb and forefinger together around Harry's wrist and still have space left over. He looked fucking harmless when he was sleeping, exhausted, and slightly ill, and fuckin' _delicate_. Almost like those freaky ass dolls he remembered his mum liking so much. Dean sold them all when he found out they were collectables, claiming it was so they could make rent; yeah bullshit. That cash went on the cocaine racket that Dean liked to think no one knew about.

Hermione had told him to keep an eye on Harry, something that after this, Eggsy told himself that he would do a lot more carefully. The Relief Workers were wearing themselves down to threads to keep the rest of humanity going. Keep them from offing themselves, keeping them fed and watered, sheltered and warm, clean, even as they were barely keeping the broken parts of themselves held together with bloody fingertips cut open on their own sharp edges and sheer _stubbornness_.

Harry woke up screaming four hours later, but that was the norm now and at least he had four hours.

Everyone woke up screaming these days.

 _ **000**_

Errol crashed into the window later that day while Harry was brewing Pepper-up potions in 'his' office. He almost threw up when he saw the elderly owl. He had been trying to ignore– trying not to think about– the others...

He could hear Hermione's voice approaching, talking stringently about rebuilding the Justice System as the old ways just weren't applicable right now in their current circumstances, they needed some emergency response laws and punishments to follow until they were back on their feet and had some kind of functioning society going here again.

Harry snatched the letters from Errol, almost yanking him off the windowsill and shoved them into a desk draw under Eggsy's confused stare, shooing the owl out just in time for Hermione to blast in, furious and semi-feral seeming with her wild hair and single fierce remaining eye.

"There's been a murder," she announced without preamble, making Harry's blood chill. This was what they had been fearing, and hoping wouldn't happen. There had already been too much death between Death Day and the following suicides. "One of those nutters shot Hestia while she was overseeing the burning at Kia Oval. We've got the bastard in lock down right now. What should we do with him?" she demanded harshly, looking as though she hoped it would be painful. Hermione had changed considerably after Death Day, Harry hadn't the heart to point it out to her. He had as well.

Murdering your children did that to you.

Harry gave her a measured look, "Well, we _won't_ be setting him on fire as a start," he said flatly, and Eggsy gaped at the young woman in a mix of admiration and fear. Word had spread pretty far about what had happened to the rapists of London – having their junk set on fire, and then only healed half way before being forced to work the Burn Sites. It was a brutal punishment that made a lot of blokes kick off, shouting about over-reactions, and made a lot of the girls feel a hundred times safer going out and doing what they could to help pick up the pieces.

Harry sighed getting to his feet, "Gather the section heads, we're making this whole thing public. Set up a table in Trafalgar. I'll go and talk to those involved." Something about the way he said it made the girl glare suddenly at him.

"The Stone?" she demanded suspiciously.

Harry scoffed as he threw stasis charms over the large cauldrons he had been sweating over, "Hell no."

And then they left, Eggsy chasing after them and casting a single glance over his shoulder to the desk where that curious letter was hidden.

Andrew Webber was a forty two year old web designer currently cleaning dishes at an Italian restaurant in order to keep the roof over his head when Death Day hit. He was about 6'4", thin, gaunt, and shaking as Harry stared him down. They had placed him in a public toilet within the park. It was clean, they had provided a mattress and a blanket, but by the very nature of public rest rooms in London, the windows were barred, and even though the door was broken, the barred gate remained.

"You may want to wait outside, Eggsy. This will not be pleasant," Harry warned him, without looking away from the sneering man in the off-yellow bathroom.

He shook his head, "Fuck that," he scoffed, "Ain't nuffin' 'bout d'is shit been bare pleasant, bruv," he pointed out flatly.

Harry sighed, "Don't say I didn't warn you," he murmured before with a short gesture that had Andrew slam back against the far wall. Eggsy swallowed back his faint trepidation at the sight, perhaps he should have thought this through a bit more – it hadn't occurred to him that magic could be used offensively. Still, this bastard was a murderer, someone who had been in _full_ control of his actions when he attacked one of the very people who had been working so hard to help them. Eggsy had seen the girl, Hestia, in the distance, she was pretty and fairly friendly seeming. She worked on healing most of the time, but everyone had to take a turn on the Burning Grounds to vanish the ashes once they'd gotten to a certain point. Eggsy had even been there himself helping to shovel charred remains into the dug-outs where Harry would vanish them.

"You killed someone, Andrew," Harry stated blandly as he stared down at the older man.

"No! No! It – it was the rage again! I didn't mean to! The rage hit me again! I swear!" he protested, shouting almost hysterically. "I didn't mean to! I couldn't stop! I didn't want to! I swear!"

Eggsy felt a chill, the rage had been what they were calling it. If it was back...

"See, I might have believed you, if you hadn't said that," Harry explained coolly, making the man stop blubbering and stare up at him fearfully as Harry crouched down. "I remember that day, clearly, painfully. It's like needles of ice through my brain whenever I close my eyes.

"When the rage hit... I _wanted_ to hurt people. I _meant_ to do it. Every head I caved in. Every throat I tore out. Every person I cut in half. I _meant_ it. With every ounce of the red rage inside me. _I meant it_."

It was that way for everyone. Eggsy had to look away, grimacing against the memories, his mouth dry, his palms sweating. They _meant_ what they did. They _wanted_ to do what they did. He _wanted_ to smash Dean's face in until there was nothing left. He _meant_ to cave Rottweiler's chest in with a barstool. He _meant_ it when he rammed Rottweiler's gun into Jamal's eye and pulled the trigger. He _wanted to do it_. And that was the worst thing about Death Day. It wasn't that their bodies moved on their own while their minds were sat in the backseat screaming. They _wanted_ to fight, to kill, to hurt. They _wanted to do it_. So they did. The anger was that strong, that dark, that it brought out the worst in them all, brought out their inner-killers. Didn't matter if you were a school teacher who did Sunday school sermons and knitted hats for unclaimed dead babies to wear at their funerals, or if you were a psycho fresh out of prison fucking small children and animals to get your jollies. You killed all the same, and you _meant it_.

Harry's hand snapped out like a snake, grabbing Andrew by his hair and shoving his head back into the tile hard enough for even Eggsy to flinch at the sound it caused, so familiar and yet not, because the bar of the Black Prince had been wood, not tile, when he rammed Ryan's head into it again, and again, and again, until – he had to take a breath.

"So let's try this again," the wizard said slowly, quietly, and with enough menace to chill Eggsy's blood. He didn't want to witness a second murder. "You murdered someone, Andrew. And now I'm going to find out why. _Legilimens._ "

Andrew screamed, and screamed, and screamed.

His eyes and mouth wide open, as if viewing the gates of hell themselves as Harry gripped his hair and stared intensely into his eyes. He wasn't even gripping his hair hard, or grinding his head back into the slightly cracked tiles behind him. But whatever he was doing, it was hurting him. Enough for a thin ribbon of blood to dribble out of his right nostril.

And then Harry blinked, and Andrew stopped screaming, his hands came up to clutch at his head as Harry let him go and stepped back, his expression shuttered and cold.

"I see."

Was that it? What the – what did he _do?_

Eggsy stumbled backwards out of the wizard's way as he turned around and swept out of the bathroom, glancing back at Andrew as he sobbed into his knees, sliding sideways to curl up in a foetal position on the floor, shivering and moaning in pain.

Outside, Harry walked down the path up ahead before suddenly veering towards a tree, and throwing up everything that Eggsy had managed to talk him into eating that morning. Alarm shot through him, had... whatever he did, hurt him more than it had Andrew? He quickly hurried over and began to rub the wizard's back.

"You a'ight?" he asked softly as Harry gagged, coughing and spitting. He was crying, Eggsy realised with a sharp stab of discomfort.

"I'll live," he rasped, grimacing and spitting again before straightening up and wiping his face and nose on a sleeve. He staggered away from the mess he made, leaning heavily on Eggsy for a moment before taking a deep breath and straightening up, standing under his own strength and hitching on a cold face. "He killed her knowingly, in full control of his actions. And she isn't the only one," he summed up darkly, "We're checking the Gasworks Gallery on Vauxhall Street," he declared darkly, already stalking off down the pathways in the direction of the Kia Oval on the otherside of the Thames.

"Oi! Back it up there a sec!" Eggsy spluttered, chasing after him, grabbing the wizard's shoulder. "He's killed other people? Other girls?" he demanded seriously, not sure if he could believe his ears.

Harry nodded, "Death Day. He got off on it. Looking back over the memories, he enjoyed it. Got addicted to the power, adrenalin, the feeling of blood under his hands. The more helpless a victim was the more boring it was, he liked the thrill. That's why he went for Hestia in the end. A magic user who knew how to fight. The idea of killing one of us was too arousing for him to ignore," the wizard explained dully and Eggsy felt sick. That fuck was killing people when their numbers were already so few?

"That's sick. Bare sick," he breathed in disbelief, slowly pulling away from the Gryffindor.

A dark eyebrow quirked as Harry moved past him, "That's the way the world has always been. We just don't have the luxury of saying it isn't our problem anymore. Hurry up. One of the girls might still be alive. He liked to play with them before the killing blow," he called over his shoulder, breaking out into a jog.

Alive?

Eggsy raced after him and Harry nodded picking up speed. The sooner they got there, the sooner they could help whoever was remaining.

 _ **000**_

All of the girls were dead by the time they got there. It looked as if one of them had committed suicide rather than give that sick fuck the satisfaction of killing her himself. The others looked as though they had been there a while. One as if she'd been there since Death Day by the state of decay, the others only days or perhaps a week old. Six women in total. He'd been getting more frequent in his kidnapping lately.

Eggsy wanted to go and smash his fucking head in right then and there. Harry however was much colder, and had him collared before he could take one furious step back towards that shit-cake's fucking bathroom cell.

A patronus and ten minutes later, Hermione arrived with Kingsley and one of the other aid workers.

What followed Eggsy couldn't make heads or tails of, but records were made, Kingsley asked him a bunch of questions, and shot Harry a dark look when he mentioned what happened in the bathroom when he used that Leggy spell. And then both he and Harry were sent back to Trafalgar for whatever reason.

"Technically I broke the Law by doing that," Harry admitted upon seeing the look on his face, "Mind reading is akin to a form of mental rape, any evidence gathered through such methods aren't admissible in court. But it's one of the few ways to be one hundred percent sure of what you're talking about. If this was before, I'd be arrested for that. It's technically torture to use it on non-magicals."

"Technically?" Eggsy asked softly.

"It can cause your kind extensive brain damage if done without care. And I wasn't very careful," Harry stated blandly as he returned to the cauldrons in 'his' office.

"So... why'd you do it then?"

Harry looked up at him, gauging him carefully.

"Because he was lying. And Hestia was a dear friend. I've known her since I was fifteen. She was part of the protection unit I had when I was a teenager, and she was also one of the people that put my family under witness protection when I was seventeen. She kept them alive, hidden. She was a good person. And he _lied_." Harry turned his attention back to the cauldrons. "If you can't agree with it, just tell Hermione. She'll find someone else to shadow me. It's fine."

"Do you want me t'go?" Eggsy asked, suspiciously certain the answer was no. Harry had opened up some, and the difference between how he treated Eggsy to the other aid workers was marked – even if no one came close to how Hermione was treated, but Eggsy was pegging them as _very_ close even before the rage hit.

"No," Harry admitted blandly, "But I'm not a nice person, Eggsy. Both Hermione and I were for, all intensive purposes, child soldiers in a civil war only eight years ago. The law is pretty flexible in our eyes. And not a lot of people can stomach that."

"Bruv, I was in prison 'fore Death Day. Two weeks outta there and the world goes t'shit. The bluds I went inside t'protect I shanked me'self, right alongside my fuckin' step-dad and his skavs. Law makin' an' breakin' ain't my issue, y'get me?" he asked seriously, leaning against the wall and folding his arms.

"Not really. Barely any of that was understandable," Harry admitted flatly before looking up and offering Eggsy something that was almost a smile, "But I get the impression. Thanks."

Eggsy snorted and pushed away from the wall, "With th' way you dress, I figured yous was from an estate or somethin'. You a posh twat? All Oxford an' shit?" he asked curiously. Harry dressed worse than he did and wore it without a single iota of self-consciousness, like he'd been rummaging shit out of charity bins his whole life, but he spoke like those rich tossers from the private schools he sometimes saw on their school trips to the Tate Modern and shit. Not as bad as some though, but he clearly didn't go to any public school Eggsy knew of.

Harry hummed as he turned Eggsy's words over in his head, "No. My Dad was, but I never knew him. Died when I was a kid. I grew up in a suburb in Surrey, went to his old boarding school in Scotland."

Eggsy snorted, "Bare posh."

"Not really," Harry scoffed, "No electricity, no central heating, no internet - "

"You're so yankin' my chain. Ain't _no_ way!" Eggsy denied with a disbelieving snort.

Harry nodded, "Yes way. Magic and technology don't get along. Tech shorts out around it, doesn't work. One of the guys in the year below brought his mobile in once, it blew up the first time he tried to phone home, nearly took his ear off."

"Fuckin' hell! I'd go mental without wifi. What'd you even _do_ up there? Jerk off for fun?" he demanded shaking his head in disgust. How did anyone survive without technology? Well, they were managing it right _now_ but it was like all those post apocalyptic games he used to play all the time. Hardly what he'd call a comfortable standard of living.

"Play chess, exploding snap, I was captain of the school sports team, and yeah, a lot of people masturbated. But that's the best thing about Silencing Charms, no one ever found out unless you forgot," he stated bluntly, so much so, that it took Eggsy a second for his words to sink in, and he couldn't help but laugh in disgust.

"Rank," he complained laughing, "That's fuckin' rank."

The wizard shrugged a shoulder, "Magic or not, human is human."

"Fair enough."

 _ **000**_

 **Oh god, I have to apologise for Eggsy. While his use of language IS actually appropriate for what you will actually hear coming from most Chavs in England, writing it out is still awful and I'm sorry to subject your eyes to that. It won't just be the occasional slang you hear from the movie, that's Eggsy trying semi-successfully to tone it down while he's around the others, on his own, or around people he considers part of his group, the full slang comes out properly. And even if Harry isn't, he looks enough like it for Eggsy to slip.**

 **I've toned it down considerably from what it was when I first posted it on facebook. But yeah. Chav slang is pretty much another language, I was watching Kingsman wondering why Eggsy was so well spoken when I've lived on the edge of an estate since I was a kid –** **I** **talk more street than he does and I had my mother clipping me upside the head when I didn't enunciate properly.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Queensmen**

 _ **000**_

 _In the wake of a V-day that went off without a hitch, Harry Potter picks up the pieces of a broken London and hunts for a reason why, attracting all manner of attention, from all manner of people. Slash. AU – Non-Kingsman!Eggsy._

 _ **000**_

 **Chapter Three**

Harry can't sleep for longer than an hour before he wakes up screaming now.

Eggsy's at the end of his rope and he doesn't know how to help because Harry is _literally_ dying in front of him and there is nothing that he can do to stop it, nothing that Hermione can do to stop it, and Kingsley is just as lost as they are and _no one_ knows why his nightmares have suddenly stepped up in frequency and violence. Harry is practically sobbing with desperation to just _sleep_. It's been five days now since he last slept for longer than an hour and it is _killing_ him.

"Don't you have one of them magic potions you can give him?" he demanded, practically tearing his too-long hair out as he pleaded with the one-eyed witch.

She shook her head, "There's one but he _can't_ have it!" she refused.

"He's _dying_!" Eggsy practically bellowed, only just managing to bite back the volume because absolutely _no one_ was to find out because if they knew their precious Green Wizard was withering away there would be riots. Moral would drop like a stone. There would be another wave of suicides just like at the beginning. As much as Harry fuckin' hated it, he was now the lynch-pin of England, their fuckin' King. Crownless and protesting though he was.

"And if he takes it he'll become addicted _again_ ," Hermione hissed leaning in, "Dreamless Sleep is stupidly addictive when you've got PTS. It took us a year of combined effort to get Harry off it last time. He _cannot_ fall into that again, we just don't have the support network to dry him out again," she explained quietly, looking pained. Eggsy chewed his lower lip angrily while Hermione shook her head, "Sleeping Beauty, Eggsy. If Harry fell back into Dreamless Sleep like he did back then, he would sleep until his body literally withered away. He nearly starved himself to death last time, to say nothing of the other damages that occurred. He _cannot_ go back under."

He almost wanted to say ' _but just this once wouldn't hurt_ ', but bit it back. Addiction was never just ' _this once_ '. That was a trap and a fallacy and Eggsy had been around enough junkies to respect the fact that when someone put the effort in to get clean, they fucking dragged themselves out by their fucking nails.

"Is there anythin' else?" he begged.

She shook her head, "Muggle drugs maybe. But there's nothing magical. Not unless you want to put him into a coma," she warned softly, rubbing her eye and looking pained, "If you find a solution, share it with me. I could do with a good night's sleep as well," she admitted in defeat, her shoulders sagging and her skin pale enough to be almost transparent.

Eggsy took a breath and nodded, "A'ight."

He's pretty sure that the sudden upswing in nightmares is from the whole Andrew Webber thing. Harry dug around in his head and saw what he did to those girls, what he did to his friend, Hestia, and why. Plus what they did to him afterwards. Originally, no one had intended on allowing execution, even in these dark days. But when the Gas Works Gallery was discovered, that had to change. They didn't have the man-power to watch Webber, contain and control him, and they couldn't afford to have him locked up in that bathroom forever – he would find a way out eventually.

They put it to a discussion amongst the other survivors, made the whole thing visible and public. And the people _bayed_ for blood. With an overwhelming scream for execution, there wasn't much the Relief Workers could do. They didn't have the resources to lock him up, they couldn't let him leave and kill again, and he couldn't be reformed. So they tied him up, gagged him, and threw him into the Burning Grounds. Eggsy hadn't been able to watch. He watched the others instead, how Hermione turned away, grimacing, angry, but satisfied all the same. Kingsley observing the people, looking for trouble, his attention already on the next issue, ensuring there would never be another mistake like this again. Only Harry watched, ensuring the deed was done, that it was properly witnessed, that at least one person in the crowd didn't view it as a sick form of entertainment. And when it was done, he vanished the remains personally before warning the crowd that if anyone killed another human, in anything beyond self-defence, this would be their punishment.

Eggsy sighed as he re-entered the tent that Harry had claimed, he was freezing his fucking balls off but Harry insisted on his office at the Gallery being used by the children, elderly, and infirm. He was young, fit, and healthy, he could handle a tent. Even if it was fuckin' March and _snowing_ outside.

He was bundled up in about four jumpers and hoodies, gloves, and three pairs of trousers, sat cross-legged with his blanket wrapped around him as he made marks on a map of London in front of him. The thing was scribbled to the point of near-illegibility but for Eggsy and Harry who had _made_ , or at least watched, the marks being put there, it made perfect sense. Harry was shaking like a leaf and looked smaller and paler than ever, his eyes sunken in and bruised, he looked _awful_.

"Good thing Southern Gas changed their metallic mains," Harry greeted him as he crawled in. Harry had refused one of the big, fancy tents that you could stand up in, and have actual beds and shit. Instead, he went for a simple, two man blue tent that barely had enough room for him and all of his papers. Eggsy ended up in a similar tent right next door but he was beginning to think he should just move in here, he spent more time in Harry's tent than he did his own and it would make life _so_ much easier if he didn't have to worry about the wizard getting up and fucking off without him in the mornings (that had happened way too often for Eggsy's blood pressure).

He scoffed as he nudged his muddy shoes off on the ground sheet, "Department of Environmental Health gave them until twenty-fifteen to do it or face legal action. They got the metallics replaced before twenty-fourteen, bruv."

"Still, it is convenient. The plastic mains haven't seen _nearly_ as much damage as the metallic water mains. We've had three burst in as many days," Harry explained pointing to three different locations near to the parks but on the side that faced away from the river as Eggsy settled in beside him. "Only one injury so far. They've been seen to, but it looks like we're going to have to put a stop to repair efforts in this area. At least until the Water Board shuts down. The mains are fountaining about twenty-five feet up."

Eggsy blinked, that was actually impressive. "Would've been a mess if someone was stood over it when it popped," he observed with a small grimace.

Harry hummed in agreement, shifting slightly as the other man tugged at his bedding and pulled an edge of it over his own legs, no doubt cold after being outside, "Would've torn them in half. Good thing the search teams were a little more observant than most. They spotted the water squirting out of the cracks and took it carefully. Speaking of careful, what's our stock of Pepper-up looking like?" he asked, peering around the edge of his hood.

"Still got half'a one of those monster cauldrons. They're rationing it for only when folk get sick, or bare close to hypothermia," he explained, "Spoke to 'Mione about potions, she ain't got anythin' for your nightmares. Sorry bruv, deadend."

Harry nodded, slumping in his bedding, "I know. I think... if I had the option I'd take it and just slip away into – " he cut himself off and glanced to Eggsy looking almost guilty, "Never mind. S'not going to happen. There's too much to do," he declared firmly, returning to his map intently, as if Eggsy didn't understand that even though you didn't want to commit suicide, that even though you weren't suicidal, if the option to just... _cease_ was there, you'd take it. To just vanish, cease to be, just go away into nothing. It was tempting, so fucking tempting. But like Harry said, there was just too much to do.

Like finding an alternative to this Dreamless Sleep shit.

See, if this was like when his mum had insomnia it would have been a doddle to resolve! One trip down fuckin' Sainsburies and a pack of herbal sleep aids and sweet dreams. But then she went and got addicted to them and it took falling asleep with the iron on and nearly burning the flat down to scare her off them. Harry already had an addiction to one form of magic sleep medication, and besides, the herbal sleep aids would do _shit_ for nightmares like his. Eggsy would need to find prescription pills to knock him out past the point of dreaming and he didn't know what the shit he was lookin' for -

But he knew someone who did.

Poodle, that fat waste of space, survived. And he actually _had_ a qualification in pharmaceuticals. Sure he never _did_ anything with it beyond keep Dean and his other cronies from OD-ing, but he would know what to look for. And Eggsy had successfully put the fear of motherfucking _god_ in that skav when he got out of Prison.

He flung the bedding he'd stolen over Harry's head, "Stay here! I just had an idea!" he called, scrambling for his shoes.

"Did it hurt?" Harry demanded sarcastically as he wrestled his way free of the blanket, "Where _are_ you going?"

"Talk to an old... friend," Eggsy hesitated. He couldn't call Poodle that, not when he would quite happily put a fist through his gob, but hey, if calling him that got Eggsy what he wanted, he'd fuckin' call him 'Your Majesty'.

 _ **000**_

Mirtazapine. Technically an antidepressant, but who didn't need cheering up these days? And if it helped Harry with insomnia, something that it was apparently also used for, then all the better. Poodle got a box of stale custard creams for his troubles, and Eggsy hauled ass back to St James' with three boxes of the stuff and a warning that, like almost all hypnotic class drugs, it had addictive qualities and he would need to control Harry's take carefully. In terms of OD-ing, it was less toxic than other drugs and wouldn't cause heart attacks or anything, but the problem was that Eggsy didn't _know_ what the other effects would be or how to stop them.

Either way, he gave Harry two of them and stayed with him the whole night.

He dropped off easily enough, like always, and when the hour mark came, Eggsy held his breath. It went, and nothing happened. Two hours came, and went, and he didn't even wrinkle his nose. Three, four, five hours and Harry was sleeping like a log and Eggsy was fighting back his own exhaustion. By the sixth hour, he had fallen asleep as well, half-sprawled on the map and a few books, twisted into _such_ an uncomfortable position. Seven hours, eight, nine, ten, Eggsy woke up with a sharp gasp as his own nightmares jarred him away at the four hour mark since he fell asleep. And Harry was still out cold.

His pulse was steady when Eggsy took it so clearly he hadn't died, or gone into a coma. But still. Ten hours, man.

He cleaned up the tent a little, making some space, and went back to sleep. He was one of the lucky few who was still able to fall asleep when and where he wanted to, he didn't sleep _long_ but he could sleep almost immediately after waking up if he had to.

When he woke up again, he had no idea what time it was. Just that Harry was awake, sat up in his blankets, looking sleepy but a _lot_ better than before. The bruises around his eyes weren't so pronounced, and his eyes were surprisingly bright. "Whatever that shit was, I hope you have more of it because I haven't slept that well since I was eleven," he admitted with a jaw cracking yawn that made him flinch a little and rub his cheek in pain.

Eggsy chuckled a little, "Technically, it's an antidepressant. Just bare good with insomnia," he explained as he scratched his chin. He hated growing facial hair, it was itchy as fuck.

He doesn't comment on Harry saying that he hasn't slept well since he was eleven. He's seen the scars. There are some things you just don't ask.

 _ **000**_

They lost running water two days later, and things began to warm up.

They had to move again from the park and into the near-by office blocks when the snow melt started to cause flooding. Electricity was well and truly gone now. And reports started coming in of men and women contracting Cholera which caused some distress. None of the Relief Workers knew of any potions or drugs or spells able to deal with the sickness, so it left what few doctors and nurses that hadn't suicided after Death Day to scramble for drugs and treatments to help them. The Thames nearly burst its banks down towards the Tower of London, and Harry ended up spending eight hours in the pouring rain with two wands in hand holding back the tide and building up the walls along the the more hazardous areas of the river. He nearly caught his death of cold. Hermione had to force three doses of Pepper-up down his neck to burn the damp out of him and even then he was bed-bound for three days as he recovered. Eggsy stayed with him the whole time, making sure he stayed warm and hydrated.

With the big freeze over, the magic users were taking the opportunity to clear and repair the sewage networks, clear out the storm-drains, and see what they could do about the water issues they were having.

They passed by the estate while Harry was tracing one sewage line, repairing the splits in the concrete where shit and piss and bog-roll had frozen and expanded past the stone's ability to contain. Eggsy was just glad that Harry was good enough with his magic that they didn't have to dig into the ground and excavate the sewage line to repair it like they'd have had to with regular roadworks. He could just send his magic into the ground, vanish the obstructions, and smooth over the stone – good as new. Slow going, but it was going, and once they had the Water Board back up and running, they'd have functioning toilets.

"'ey, Harry... Can we make a pit-stop?" Eggsy asked, nodding to the concrete towers. "I..." he trailed off, unsure exactly of what he wanted to do back at home. Get some fresh clothes, find some pictures, take a few of Katie's toys for the kids at the Gallery... yeah, they all sounded like good ideas but he...

Harry looked up at the towers, then at him, and nodded. "Sure. Anything to get out of the rain," he agreed solemnly, shaking himself in an exaggerated fashion and sending rain flying everywhere. Eggsy tried to muster a smile but... He didn't think he could, not right now.

This was the first time he'd gone home since Death Day.

He didn't know what he would find once he opened the door, he wasn't sure he _wanted_ to open the door. And in the end, he stood in front of it, hand on the knob and froze.

It's raining hard, the sound pitter-pattering on the concrete around him, the smell of blood and decay is long gone, washed away in the wet, leaving just the smell of damp.

It's been over a month. Forty four days in all. Since Death Day.

Eggsy hasn't been home once.

A hand touches his shoulder, "Take your time," Harry tells him softly and Eggsy takes a deep breath, feeling it hitch in the back of his throat.

"I 'aven't been home," he tries to explain, words stumbling and falling all over themselves as he grips the handle tightly, and he can't say anymore. Just closes his mouth tight, teeth clenched until his jaw aches, and he opens the door. Unlocked as always. And he steps into the gloom before he can tell himself otherwise.

There's blood on the floor of the kitchen, all over Katie's pushchair, her favourite stuffed lamb, the one Eggsy got for her when he got out. It was the first present he got for her that she could remember. He feels his hands shaking and he forces himself to walk. He stomps past the blood, past the bathroom and the blood-stains in the bathtub, and storms into his room where he throws himself down onto his bed aggressively, just trying to shut it all out.

 _Coming here was a mistake_.

Stepping into the flat seems almost like an invasion of Eggsy's privacy, but Harry does it anyway. His eyes scanning over the joined living room and kitchen. The battered sofas, cigarette butts and smoke stains, the peeling wall paper, bottles of left over alcohol here and there, gossip rags, grinders, shotty-bottles... the baby paraphernalia, done up in shades of yellow, pink, blue, and orange. The blood on the floor that's too much and too little all at the same time. Gaze sliding through the open bathroom door to the bloodstains in the tub, how it lined the white plastic steadily. And outside it continued to rain steadily as Harry stooped and picked up the little lamb, feeling cold and sick all at once, until he felt nothing. Just numb once again.

A silent cleaning charm, a small repairo on the pulled seam.

He paused in Eggsy's doorway.

His room was untouched, only a thin mist of dust over clothes, electronics, books and DVDs, a small trophy case, football scarf over the mirror... It was surprisingly tidy for a twenty-three year old's bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed, Eggsy was curled up facing the wall, silent, angry. Harry didn't touch him. He stared down at the lamb in silence.

"...I killed my son," Harry finally says, and feels Eggsy tense behind him. "When Death Day hit... I was cooking lunch, Teddy was doing his homework at the table... I was homeschooling him. He had a unique magical ability, shapeshifting, but he was too young to control it properly. His hair would change colour all the time. Reds, yellows, greens. Happy colours. But he loved teal most. That was his content colour. I couldn't put him through school like regular children, we were still in hiding, but he would play with Hermione's daughter every chance he got. He wanted to be a big brother _so_ much. Then the wave hit and... I smashed the frying pan into the side of his head... He never saw it coming... Small mercies..." He fiddled with the lamb's ear, "I sometimes dream that he turned around, that he heard me coming, that he knows I killed him. I imagine the look on his face when he realises I'm going to hit him and... I can't stand it. He was nine. Just two more years and he would have been able to go to school. It was far enough away that it was safe, the wave didn't hit there. No one died. Just two more years and..."

He doesn't sigh, just goes quiet and stares at the lamb.

"I haven't been back home either."

 _ **000**_

They take all of Eggsy's belongings from the flat, several of his mother's, and all of Katie's. Eggsy doesn't want to think of his baby sister, but there are children in the Gallery and they could use some of this stuff, and he doesn't think she would have minded. Katie liked sharing things when she was playing, once she decided she liked him, she would toddle over and hand him whatever she happened to have in her little hands, babbling happily. She would try to offer him half of her biscuit or chocolate bar when his mum gave her a treat. And the one time Eggsy felt comfortable enough (with Dean down the pub) lying on the floor while playing with her, he pretended to go to sleep, and she made the _cutest_ 'uh oh' before pulling her blankie over his head and patting his face while he made exaggerated snoring noises.

She didn't deserve Death Day.

Harry's Teddy didn't deserve it either.

Neither did Hermione's daughter.

Fuck, it was always the children that got hurt the worst.

If Eggsy ever found out who was responsible for this... He didn't know what he would do to them, just that it would be _something_.

 _ **000**_

They got the sewage lines cleaned and repaired, the Water mains followed, and then they got the Water Board working again, found a few engineers and electricians remaining who were willing to man such an essential resource. The first hot shower Eggsy had since the end of the world was at a shitty blood stained gym with about eight other guys, all moaning appreciatively as they scoured off old sweat and filth. It was probably as close to a religious experience as Eggsy would ever have when he finally put razor to stubble and got rid of the burgeoning chin badger he had been growing.

Once upon a time ago, washing and shaving by candle-light would have been luxurious, the type of erotic shit he did with past girlfriends. Now a days, it just reminded him that they needed to get the power back online and see how the rest of the world was handling this shit.

Harry had intentions of heading out tomorrow to get it sorted, Hermione would be coming with them. If needs be, they had every intention of combining magic and technology to ensure that there would be electricity one way or another. But regardless of how, it looked like electricity, gas, and water were going to be free from now on. Something that Eggsy thought was just depressing given how before Death Day it would have been inconceivable. And now after civilisation goes to shit, they finally reach a point of enlightenment where basic living requirements are free for all no matter what. Where old people weren't gunna freeze to death in their own beds during the winter, where parents didn't have to make the choice of drawing their kids a bath or cooking them a hot meal.

He found Harry in the Gallery with a bunch of the kids, he had used magic on a few of the toys and was entertaining them by having the stuffed animals re-enact some kind of story, complete with funny voices that came out of the toys. Eggsy smiled a little, leaning on the doorframe and watched as Harry cradled a little girl in his lap, gently conducting the toys while she gasped and squealed, clappy her pudgy little hands together.

Before the end of the world, Harry would have been one of those guys that he would have dismissed out of hand. Ignored. Scorned. Mocked with Ryan and Jamal if he hadn't out right tried to rob him. The type of guy Eggsy would have victimised in a heartbeat on the inside. Of course, knowing what he knew now, he would have gotten his _ass_ kicked for trying it. But the fact was if he had, he would have never gotten to know what an amazing person the wizard was. He only _looked_ unassuming and fragile. There was a core of steel and ice in that man, and Eggsy never wanted to be on the wrong side of him.

Though he wouldn't say no to being on the _right_ side of him, well on the right side of him.

Almost two months since Death Day, and a month and a half since Eggsy started shadowing him. He'd had entire relationships from start to finish take less time than that. Complete from the first meeting, to deleting their number and pictures from his phone. He'd be lying if he said he hadn't fallen a bit for the wizard. He was very easy to admire. Easy to love. And a little part of Eggsy hoped that his opening up slowly but surely was a good sign of things to come. But with the world the way it was, they had more important things to be concerned over than hooking up and romance and shit. So he didn't say anything. Content to watch the wizard's back, make sure the idiot actually slept and ate instead of worked until he passed out again. And if, eventually, down the line, he wanted to make a go of things, well, Eggsy wasn't going to say no.

April fools brought with it a return of electricity in and around the city, and news of food-shortages. Thus far by pooling all their resources and having people come to the soup-kitchens they'd been able to stretch the scavenged cans and pastas and other such dry goods for as long as possible, but right now they were seeing those supplies starting to run thin.

Harry sighed, "We're going to have to get the economy back on its feet," he mused tiredly as he read over the stock lists he had been presented with, they were running low on almost _everything_ , "Most farms would have been largely unaffected by the Wave meaning that they should be able to continue farming and providing resources but we're going to need to pay them for it somehow."

Eggsy scoffed, "Not right now I dun' think. People'll surprise you, bruv," he pointed out when Harry gave him a look, clearly not believing that the farmers would be willing to give up their precious resources without a tangible return.

 _ **000**_

He tried not to say ' _I told you so_ ' when the farmers agreed without hesitation to help, when they all pulled together, setting aside personal gain and focused on coming together to help their neighbours without getting greedy about it. Their harvests were shared out, they increased their meat and poultry productions, even gave away hens and cocks so that people in the cities could start their own chicken farms and what not. Magic users once again began instrumental in making sure that the agriculture picked up the pace, was able to meet the demand. Some clever clogs living on the coast even started to collect salt from the ocean, sending it out across the country for people to use in meat preservation. And when the internet came back online, everyone in England started sharing methods of growing and maintaining their own vegetable patches, green houses, hydroponic gardens, how to cook this, preserve that, what time to plant this, when to pick that.

He really tried not to say it.

He didn't succeed.

Harry wasn't amused.

Neither was Eggsy when he woke up to the words ' _Smug fucker_ ' written on his face in felt-tip pen. Though he did see the funny side of it when a judicious hip-bump in retaliation sent Harry slipping on the mud and face first into a puddle.

 _ **000**_

 **Felt I should end things on a bit of a lighter note this time XDDD**

 **Yes, England is well and truly getting back on her feet, and the plot is about to plough into her like a train. Fun stuff. Stay tuned.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Queensmen**

 _ **000**_

 _In the wake of a V-day that went off without a hitch, Harry Potter picks up the pieces of a broken London and hunts for a reason why, attracting all manner of attention, from all manner of people. Slash. AU – Non-Kingsman!Eggsy._

 _ **000**_

 **Chapter Four**

With the return of power came the return of the internet.

A lot of places around the world had managed to keep their networks running somehow via satellite connection, so not everyone went dark. Everywhere was news of the rage. It had been a completely _world wide_ event, regardless of timezone or location, almost to the second the entire world went postal all at once. What few Governments there were remaining, crumbling under the weight of their own dead but not quite gone yet, were crunching the numbers and thus far it looked as though the human population had taken a beating unlike anything ever recorded. Not even the Bubonic Plague or the Black Death had death-tolls this high. Just from the initial number crunching Harry could tell they were looking at a total world wide population loss of significantly more than four _billion_.

And when the total world population was just over seven billion, over half the total human population was not an acceptable margin of loss.

What the hell had even caused this?

 _Who_ had caused this?

Would they do it _again_?

 _WHY_ had they even done it to start with?

Harry shook his head as he glared at the small high-tech laptop in front of him. Eggsy had come back with it after raiding one of the electronic stores and while he had been tempted to tell him to put it back, looting was now just a part of their lives and it wasn't like anyone was going to fucking _care_ about it anymore. The corporation that owned it was probably already in ruins. So Harry took it, and thanked him, and smiled that small brittle smile that was coming more and more easily as the days dragged on and humanity began to pick itself up, and the world seemed less bleak.

And then he started looking for answers.

Magic was now an open secret. Seemed as though their communities had come out of the disaster better than anyone else, especially the isolated and highly-concentrated ones. Harry frowned, sucking on his lower lip. He made a note on the paper beside him. Areas highly saturated in magic were unaffected. Areas where technology _didn't_ work. Mobile phones still got signal even in the Ministry and Diagon Alley, and he knew that the Ministry had landlines, and the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts had a number of muggle objects imbibed with magic, things from disappearing keys to laptops that managed to work off magic. But Hogsmeade and Hogwarts were saved. He wondered about Gringotts and made another note to check. The doors had been barred when last he visited Diagon, but there was a chance the Goblins had merely withdrawn into the tunnels when the violence started.

Digging through the internet was not as easy as it seemed at first. Harry wasn't what anyone could call particularly skilled at 'google-fu', in fact, he was only a few steps away from completely computer illiterate – something that Eggsy found absolutely _hilarious_ when Harry complained to him at the start of his search.

However, he did have an enormous well of patience that came from digging through a massive library with no understandable cataloguing system and leafing through huge heavy tomes with no index on the back page. Harry kept searching with almost unending patience long after even the most intent of internet researchers would have given up.

And his notebook began to fill under Eggsy's disbelieving gaze as he ducked in and out of the small office that had become theirs overlooking Trafalgar Square.

"'ow the fuck did you find all this?" he asked, leaning over Harry to get a look at the papers he had around him. More to the point, _why_ did he write them down? What was so important?

"This is what I do, Eggsy," Harry told him quietly, "Before Death Day, I wasn't just a stay at home Dad. I was a cop. Magical one, I'll grant you, but my speciality was Heavy Combat and Investigations. My teacher said that if you locked a secret in a puzzle box, threw away the key, sealed it behind a wall in a dungeon, in an abandoned section of my old school, and erased your own memory of its very existence. I'd find it within a year and unravel that secret." He quirked a smirk that was half pride and half vicious satisfaction, and with the light of the laptop glinting off his glasses, it was _fuckin'_ hot. "They weren't wrong."

Eggsy hummed and turned his attention to the papers, swallowing hard against his dry throat as he picked one of them up, Harry's spiky handwriting glaring out at him from the page. "So what does a group of Mercenaries gettin' fucked on bath-salts 'ave to do with Death Day?" he asked, scanning the writing. Rage, cannibalism, etc; tasty stuff, but he'd heard of druggies doing worse on LSD and other shit. Hell, stick a bloke on enough crap and give him a bad ride and he would go so fucking mental that he'd believe the ass eating monster coming out of his socks was real and kill _himself_ to get away from it. Never mind what he'd so to someone if he thought _they_ were the ass eating monster. Eggsy'd had some bad trips before on a few party drugs, legal highs and shit that got cut with something a little rougher, but he'd never been violent on it – though he witnessed a pretty nasty riot while he was too sick to do anything about it.

"It was a test run," Harry explained as he made a few more notes, dates, times, a few calculations, and then crossed it out – a lot of papers had similar information crossed out.

"Test – fer Death Day?" Eggsy demanded, unsure of whether or not to believe him as he nodded. "The fuck...?" he breathed, looking down at the seemingly unconnected data.

Uganda, 2012, a drug introduced to the water supply of a guerilla army base. Messed with their brain chemistry, amped up certain hormones, and strangled others. No one came forward to claim responsibility for the destruction of the guerilla base, the Warlord in control of those parts made some half-hearted insinuations but on the whole he seemed content to pretend they never existed. There was a star next to the Warlord's name, along with a number.

"What's the number for?" he demanded, frowning down at the page.

"He went missing briefly before the test was conducted. Vanished for a week. Came back as if nothing had happened. Suddenly had a great deal more money as well. He's not the only one. Here. List of people who went missing and then reappeared. Nothing of much note, until you put it together with the list of peoples who went missing and never came back," Harry explained, handing over two lists, one of which was numbered and starred, the other was much shorter.

Eggsy frowned overlooking the list, surprised to note that he actually recognised some of those names. Popstars, royalty, celebrities, activists, politicians, youtube stars... He wondered why these people would have been taken, and then looked at the other list, that had even more politicians, world leaders, military spokesmen and women, popular religious figures, businessmen, and even more people that Eggsy didn't recognise.

"With all these people..." he trailed off, not sure if he was really understanding what his eyes were telling him.

"You could control the world. Yes," Harry answered instead, taking the papers out of his hand. "Every single one of them has been missing since Death Day. This short list here hasn't been seen since their initial abductions, while these only went AWOL on the day. I'm searching for connections between them but the waters are getting a bit muddled. I'm combing through twitter right now, but the best connection I can find is that _these_ people were all invited to a party that suddenly got cancelled," he said pointing to the names with an X beside them. "People forget how much of their lives they put onto things like facebook and twitter. And after Death Day everyone started sounding off on social Media to say that they were alive, and that such and such was with them. That's how I could tell that they were all missing, at first I thought it was simply because they were all dead, but going back through their history just in case painted a different picture. Seems like there was supposed to be a party before their abductions that got cancelled, quite a few of the attendees took to social media to complain or offer their opinions on the matter. Notably absent from the list of complainers are these people. Could be a coincidence, but I doubt it."

Eggsy nodded seriously, studying the names, Iggy Azalea had a cross next to her name, as did that missing Princess – though there was a note next to her name saying that the Prime Minister of her country did not go missing despite attending the same party.

"And 'oo was the Host o' these parties?" he demanded with a frown.

Harry sighed, "Richmond Valentine."

 _ **000**_

It was the type of thing you'd read about in a spy novel, or watch in a movie. It just wasn't the kind of shit that happened in real life, and as much as Eggsy didn't want to believe it... Harry was _good_ at what he did, _very_ good, and putting together that information... Eggsy could turn his nose up at it as much as he wanted, but the evidence lead to the conclusion.

People were missing after a Party that Richmond Valentine cancelled. People went missing and reappeared suddenly calling Valentine a friend. Meetings between world leaders and the head of the Corporation and almost to a T they either went missing soon after, or on Death Day. Valentine spends _billions_ pushing forward his free internet SIM cards for seemingly no reason other than charity, one of the kidnap-and-returners gets killed in his classroom at a university and Valentine brings the release date closer by _months_. He books a flight for Kentucky, and ten hours _before_ Death Day, South Glade Mission Church goes postal Death Day style with CCTV footage showing an unknown man fleeing the scene with head trauma, and going in the opposite direction was a car owned by Valentine with his personal assistant and girlfriend, plus two _armed_ guards. Immediately afterwards, Valentine drops off the map. Slowly followed by all of the individuals on Harry's list that weren't already MIA.

Then Death Day kicks off.

Too suspicious.

Then there's the fact that highly concentrated magical locations were unaffected by the rage, along with places where people didn't have much technology – slums, third world countries, tribal communities, old folks homes, retirement cities where everything was mostly landlines, places where satellite signal was abominably awful...

When it was all laid out, there was no other explanation. But it was the kind of hokey James Bond, Batman vs the Joker style of incomprehensible moustache twirling villainy that _made no sense_.

It was _brilliant_ , no doubt about it. Very well thought out and executed, genius if sickeningly evil. But... _why?_ Eggsy almost wanted to call it too neat, but he had seen the amount of information Harry had been wading through, how carefully he picked through his info, the amount of it that he recorded and then discarded, how he analysed and studied every kb of data. If it looked too neat, it was because Harry had removed the shit that didn't matter in the grand scope of Death Day.

"How do we go about proving it though?" Eggsy asked quietly, still reeling from the implications as he played with his now useless phone – he had taken the V-SIM out and set it on fire. His phone was now just a paperweight, he would have to dig out his old SIM card from his pencil case. Thankfully he had his pictures saved on the SD card.

Harry rubbed his eyes and flopped back onto the mattress that they'd dragged into the room. After leaving St James due to the flooding, they'd moved into the office block opposite Trafalgar at the insistence of the others. Harry hadn't objected seeing as the number of people relying on the offices had dropped now, they were still close by but people had been moving back into their houses and homes, or otherwise finding new places to live. Eggsy had moved most of his things into the office, and Harry had scavenged for anything he needed. He still hadn't mustered up the will to return to his own home, and Eggsy needed to only know that no one was able to get into the house due to the security charms to know why he didn't want to go back. His son's body would still be there.

It was a large glass room that they'd pinned sheets of paper to the windows in order to make private from the rest of the office that other people had claimed. The desk was shoved against the window into a corner and Harry often made use of it for his laptop. One of the paper-covered glass walls was now littered with all of the evidence about Valentine and Death Day, timelines, twitter quotes, strings and notes linking each event in a confusing tangle to anyone that hadn't been listening when Harry detailed his findings. Eggsy's belongings were here, there, and everywhere. The floor had two mattresses shoved together with very different sets of bedding – Eggsy's had thin summer blankets and a single pillow while Harry's was swimming in blankets. Unlike Eggsy, Harry had a lower body temperature and actually felt the cold a lot more keenly for whatever reason, something that the chav secretly revelled in because when it got cold enough Harry was a _snuggle_ monster. Eight out of ten times, Eggsy would wake up with a lump of blankets either on top of him, or burrowed under his arm – if Harry didn't wake up first which was more often than not.

"That's not so much of a concern right now as making sure it doesn't happen again," Harry stated grimly, glaring up at the ceiling.

"Again? You think they'll pull this shit _again_?" Eggsy gaped.

"Until we know why they did it in the first place, we can't rule it out. There's also the fact that they can apparently localise it to a specific area at a time of their choosing. The South Glade Mission Church massacre was confined to the church and a single house directly behind it. Either way, we should assume they already know we're investigating. _And_ that they've already made steps to counter us," the wizard explained tiredly, draping an arm over his eyes. "You'll probably want to steer clear of me for a while, at least until I get this resolved. I imagine it's going to get rather dangerous around here once Valentine gets some people on the ground."

Eggsy scoffed angrily, stung that the wizard thought he would just up and ditch just because the going got a little tough. He threw himself down over both mattresses, making Harry bounce a little on his own with a grunt of surprise before Eggsy headbutted his stomach a little, "Fuck that, bruv. Me an' you is in this together, like. You're not gettin' rid o' me now," he declared forcefully as he shifted and used the wizard's stomach as a pillow.

Harry shifted but didn't move away, "Eggsy, they'll probably try to kill me, and anyone else who they think has seen that information," he pointed out quietly.

Eggsy thumped his head back against his stomach, making him grunt in discomfort, "Way I see it, they already ' _ave_ tried to kill us. An' if they're comin' here in person, it's just gunna even the playin' field like."

Harry was quiet, seeming to chew over the chav's words before he sighed, and dropped a hand onto Eggsy's head. "There's nothing I can say that will change your mind, is there?" he asked, sounding resigned, and a little relieved, but also worried as well.

"'bout leavin' you? Hell no, bruv. Told ya. We is in this together," he proclaimed, reaching up to grab Harry's hand and give it a squeeze. His fingers were cold as always, work roughened, small, and dry. Harry sighed somewhere above Eggsy's head and he twisted his hand, knotting their fingers together and making something in the pit of the younger man's stomach twist hopefully.

"Don't say I didn't warn you, Eggsy."

 _ **000**_

Harry figured they would have three days, maximum, before they were tracked down. In that time they needed to pack up, find somewhere safe to hide and ward, and begin their hunt for Valentine and whatever other individuals were working for him. Not too difficult with magic to aid them, he had already managed to pack up most of their things within two hours of reaching their conclusion.

Harry sighed as he scrubbed his hair in the hot water basin. They had information, they had some manner of answers but not all of them, and what they did have only raised more questions, some of which more worrisome than others. He groped for a towel and stood straight, rubbing the excess water out of his hair. He'd taken the chance to wash while Eggsy was off gathering some dry-store food and telling Hermione and Kingsley what they were doing. It wasn't often he got an uninterrupted moment to himself, and no matter how long he'd spent in Hogwarts with the other Gryffindor boys, or the years as an Auror sharing locker and shower rooms, he still wasn't comfortable bathing or being naked in front of others. It was silly, pointless self-consciousness over how scrawny and scarred and pale he was by comparison to the likes of Ron, and Kingsley, and Dean, and the other men he went through Auror training with who came out with the kind of physique that had women drooling over them.

He heard the door open behind him, "That was quick," he commented, furiously towelling his hair, the sooner he finished the sooner he could throw a shirt on. "I half expected Hermione to give you the third – degree..." he trailed off as he pulled the towel from his head and saw the complete stranger stood in his room.

He was mid-possibly late-fifties, 6'3" in height with impeccable posture and a severe baring. He wore a charcoal pin-stripe suit that must have cost a stupid amount of money given how it was _tailored_ to fit, combed back black and grey hair, a set of smart black glasses on the bridge of a slightly crooked nose, brown eyes, and a gun equipped with a suppressor pointed directly at Harry's head.

They both moved at the same time.

Harry shoved the gun away, grabbing his wrist.

The stranger's other hand came up and rammed into Harry's throat, shoving him backwards over the table, pinning him down by the neck and pressing down, _hard_. The bowl he had been washing in knocked over, clanging to the floor and splashing hot water down his back and across the office floor.

 _Fuck_ this guy was strong!

Harry gagged, trying to pry his hand from his neck, even as he locked his other arm's elbow to try and stop him from bending the gun down to shoot him.

His face felt hot.

He couldn't breathe. Fuck, his eyes were throbbing!

He gagged, thrashing, kicking his attacker's knees repeatedly, eyes screwed shut as he strained everything he had against him.

He could feel himself going under as his limbs grew heavier and weaker.

His eyes were streaming, his face was burning, all he could hear was his own thundering heart-beat and desperate gags for breath.

And then it was _gone_!

He sucked in a breath so hard that he choked on it.

"Harry? Harry, breathe!" Eggsy. Harry wheezed as he felt himself being pulled upright, Eggsy's hands fever hot on his shoulders as he was propped up against the younger man's shoulder, coughing on his own saliva and tears. "Take it slow! Tha's it – in, and out. In... and out... You alright?" he asked anxiously hands gently smoothing down his cheeks and hair, feeling strangely cold on his aching face.

He shook his head, coughing and gasping, more shaken than he was willing to admit.

Whoever it was, they'd taken him completely by surprise. He hadn't felt that helpless in a _long_ time. He couldn't even use his magic, couldn't reach his wand, concentrate enough to go without.

Helpless.

He shuddered violently against Eggsy's chest, feeling his arms come up to wrap around him. Harry couldn't stop himself from clinging on, knotting both hands in the loose folds of his wind-chilled hoodie like Teddy when he had a nightmare.

Eggsy drew away, cupping Harry's face in both hands, "You sure 'e didn't hurt you anywhere else?" the chav asked softly, blue eyes raking down Harry's still flushed and damp face, he knew that he wasn't crying, that it was just a bodily reaction to being attacked, having his eyes water, the beginning to darken bruise around his neck, trying to ignore how he felt both cold and hot, sick and tight, all at once. How his hands were not shaking even though they felt like they should be because all of his insides were _vibrating_.

The wizard shook his head, "Didn't get a chance," he rasped, voice barely above a whisper. He looked _scared_. Eggsy bundled him up again, gritting his teeth against the familiar surge of black violence inside of himself as he looked down over Harry's head at the corpse on the ground. Harry wasn't supposed to look scared. _Ever_. He wanted to kill the fucking bastard again, mess him the fuck up, make him fuckin' regret _ever_ even _thinkin'_ of layin' a hand on Harry.

"We need to leave," Eggsy summed up darkly, fingers raking through Harry's still wet hair as the wizard leaned against him. He felt Harry nod against his shoulder but made no move to release him, not when the wizard was still clinging to him like that, not when he was still shaking like that. He buried his face in Harry's hair and held him tightly until they _both_ calmed down.

"You got somewhere in mind?" he asked a little while later when the trembling began to wind down.

Harry drew back, looking pained, his neck had blossomed into a vivid black and purple monster of a bruise, with perfectly formed fingerprints. Eggsy felt sick with rage looking at them.

"Grimmauld Place. My old house," the wizard croaked softly.

Oh.

 _ **000**_

 **Done. No, don't take that last scene wrong, please. Harry isn't suddenly going to be some helpless chick with a dick, I swear. Nor an emotional woobie. He's just shaken by the fact that he was completely helpless in that scenario, unable to get at his wand, and unable to concentrate enough to use wandless magic.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Queensmen**

 _ **000**_

 _In the wake of a V-day that went off without a hitch, Harry Potter picks up the pieces of a broken London and hunts for a reason why, attracting all manner of attention, from all manner of people. Slash. AU. Non-Kingsman!Eggsy._

 _ **000**_

 **Chapter Five**

They took the body of the assassin with them after stripping him of everything useful. He had quite a few fancy bits and pieces; almost everything was weaponised from the man's signet ring, his odd armoured umbrella, the knife in his shoe, the queer poisonous liquid in his fountain pen, and the lighter that when used started to beep in such an alarming fashion that Harry didn't bother to take any chances, he vanished it immediately. Something that Eggsy couldn't fault him for given how that thing sounded like a fuckin' _grenade_.

Harry shrank the body and stored it in a matchbox before grabbing his enchanted messenger bag that had all of their belongings in it. Eggsy took a second to look him over, not entirely sure he was happy with what he was seeing. He was no longer shaking, he looked, if anything, _satisfied_. After the initial shock had worn off, when the trembling stopped, he pushed himself out of Eggsy's grasp as if nothing had happened! He picked up the bowl, vanished the water, got dressed and began to pack up the last of their things, the ones he hadn't yet stowed into his bag before shrugging into his coat, business as fuckin' usual.

Was this what he'd been like on Death Day? ' _Walk it off_ '? ' _Stiff upper lip_ '?

' _Keep calm and carry on_ '?

Fuck. The bruise around his neck was livid and dark, and made Eggsy _burn_ inside with the need to punch something. How could he stay calm when he had proof, fuckin' _proof_ , that someone they'd all trusted had shafted them like a cut rate porno, when he had some fucker's hands around his neck not even an hour ago trying to choke the life outta him for _finding out_?! As if... as if what they'd just found out wouldn't have caused riots across the planet, wouldn't have plunged them into the Dark Ages again where people became so paranoid of technology they scorned even modern medicine and drugs, _just in case_. As if it wouldn't have been signing the death warrants of anyone who'd ever worked for the Valentine corporation, either as a simple cashier, or as a cleaner in one of their many factories. As if he didn't have a guillotine hanging over England, because if he released that information, at this point, Eggsy wouldn't put it past Valentine to just reactivate the rage and focus it on England until there were no survivors. And he _knows_ Harry's aware of this, fuck, Harry could probably predict a thousand and one _extra_ things that Eggsy was missing, hadn't considered, should this information go public right then. And it _galled_ him that he couldn't tell anyone, that they couldn't shout it from the roofs and tell people to burn their SIM cards, even though he knew they planned on revealing it later, once they could assure everyone the threat was gone, over with, that they'd destroyed the machine, the satellites, once they had Valentine in cuffs or dead at their feet. They had the lives of _billions_ on their shoulders, and they couldn't tell a soul, because if they did... what was stopping Valentine from setting off another wave?

Too much, too stressful.

Eggsy was ready to start a fuckin' riot, set fire to something expensive, punch a bloke's mouth in, and Harry just adjusted his gloves so they sat a little better on his fingers, wearing the shadow of a smirk and the marks of another man's hands around his neck as if he knew the punchline to a joke no one else could hear.

They left the man's broken glasses where they were.

 _ **000**_

"Do we know who this... pup, is yet?"

"Not yet, sir. Facial recognition has pulled up a few matches, but the only match we've found over forty percent is almost a decade old. Harry Potter, wanted in connection for several terrorist incidents across London and England in 2007. A year later all outstanding warrants were cancelled."

"Any family?"

"None remaining after V-Day, sir."

"Did we get eyes on whomever killed Gawain?"

"No, sir. The attacker was positioned behind him, likely having heard the altercation and come in afterwards. We did identify the weapon through. Standard army issue combat knife. The blade entered in through the left eye-socket, shattering his glasses. We were unable to pick up any visuals."

"And his dermal trackers?"

"Disabled somehow."

"Hmph. Keep working on it, I want them found before Mister Valentine releases his people back into the world."

"Yes, sir."

 _ **000**_

Grimmauld Place was almost two hours walk away from Trafalgar heading up towards Islington. It was the most nerve wrecking two hours of Eggsy's life as he shifted protectively behind Harry, eyes flitting this way and that, suspiciously eyeing anyone who looked at them for too long. He knew he probably looked like he was perfectly willing to rip someone's arm off and beat them with it, but if anyone made a move then he was pretty sure that he actually _would_ do it at that. It was only the fact that Harry moved quickly, taking alleys and cutways that kept them out of CCTV cameras that made Eggsy relax at least a little. For all that he seemed unbothered by the attack, he wasn't fuckin' about with his safety. His hood was up, he kept his head down, and his shoulders hunched. The very picture of dejection and depression that many people in London currently embodied.

They headed up towards the A501, by-passing King's Cross Road, cutting along Wharton st, up towards Great Percy st, and then turned right at a small green onto Grimmauld Place. A series of four floored terraced townhouses, five if you included the basements.

Posh as fuck.

Harry suddenly caught his shoulder and leaned up, Eggsy grunted in surprise, hand dropping to the knife he was never far from these days and froze, _completely_ , when Harry's other hand reached up and cupped his cheek, gently pulling his head down towards him until they were cheek to cheek, Harry's mouth grazing the edge of his earlobe. Eggsy swallowed, feeling heat crawling up his cheeks as his stomach clenched. Fuck, he was twenty-goddamn-four! Not fuckin' fourteen! Get a grip, bruv!

"I live at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place," he breathed, "The wards should let you in for as long as you remember this," he explained before leaning back down and pulling away.

"R-right, got it," Eggsy managed to get out, straightening up awkwardly as Harry brushed past him and... walked between a set of elegantly curling cast-iron railings that hadn't been there before. He gaped in disbelief. An entire house was suddenly there, wedged inbetween houses eleven and thirteen as if it had been there all along, which intellectually he knew it had been, but most _certainly_ hadn't been seen before!

All the houses on the terrace were yellow-grey brick with black mortar, large windows with round arching tops in white, black arrow-head railings, french balconies on the second floor with floral railings. And crammed between them was a pale teal painted house, the floral railings painted dark emerald green to look like plants, the ground floor arrow-head railings replaced with curling cast iron ivy in dizzying spirals that looked more akin to a briar thicket than ivy. The front door was a rich burgundy red with polished brass locks, knocker, and door number, framed in white.

"Teddy chose the colour when I adopted him," Harry admitted quietly, staring up at the house with a dull expression of quiet sadness. Eggsy felt something in his chest clench. He hadn't known Teddy was adopted. Somehow... he didn't know why, somehow that made everything seem so much worse. That Harry must have been so excited, must have loved the kid so much to go out of his way like that to take him in, to repaint his house, to -

He took a deep breath, this was going to be hell on Harry. If Eggsy was having trouble keeping his composure just empathising with him...

"Is there no where else? We dun 'ave to go in there, bruv," he pointed out roughly, pressing his arm against Harry's side. The wizard pressed his lips together and strode forward, up the steps.

"There's no where safer in England, Eggsy. The only people who can get in... are the people I invite personally," he explained flatly as he reached out to the door. Eggsy watched as the lock rippled and yawned open, Harry sticking his finger into the hole and grimacing a little before something clicked and the door swung open. "And it needs my blood to unlock when I'm not home at that," he added before sticking his finger in his mouth.

Stepping into the house was... different, Eggsy supposed, from entering into his own home. Obvious differences aside. The hall was long and narrow, painted a bright sunshiny yellow with white skirting boards and a white and teal trim at waist height, above was a large glass chandelier that looked as if it were antique, the porch was a little sunken in with a shoe-rack on the left, and a coat-rack and umbrella stand on the right. Eggsy found his eyes lingering on several sets of shoes, Harry's were obvious by the size, boots, dress shoes, battered sneakers, and a pair of falling apart red converse. Next to them was a collection of significantly smaller shoes. Smart little leather pattens, trainers with light-up heels, spiderman welly-boots, a pair of straw sandals, ninja-turtle crocs... all of them smaller than Eggsy's hand. There was a welcome mat with a dog on it in front of them.

"Dining room is there if you want to wait," Harry said, gesturing carelessly to the room on the right, from what Eggsy could see through the half-open door it was a long, and done in shades of white and blue, and very posh.

He _very_ nearly asked, ' _wait for what_ ', before he remembered why they hadn't come here before. Teddy.

He was still in the kitchen.

"No way, bruv. In it together," he repeated firmly, daring to wrap an arm around the wizard's waist and pull him close. He figured he could do with the comfort, what little of it he could give.

Harry swallowed, "Decomposition rates given the weather, the damp, plus the food that was already in the kitchen no doubt going bad, the gases released during - " he babbled a little too quickly, not even pausing for breath – at least until Eggsy shifted and clapped both hands to Harry's cheeks, smooshing them firmly.

"Breathe, Harry! Just breathe," he ordered, locking green with blue. "I ain't goin' no where. Now, you got one of them spells for a face-mask or sumthin'?" he asked gently, relaxing his hold on the wizard's face until he was just cupping his cheeks, instead of squishing them together. If Harry was so concerned with decomposition gases and the smell, then Eggsy would make sure they could deal with that _before_ going down there.

"Y-yes, but Eggsy you don't have - "

"Uh uh, shut it now. We ain't arguin' this," Eggsy snapped, squishing Harry's face again, a little gratified when the wizard squirmed like an offended cat, whining in the back of his throat as he tried to pull away. "Yer not doin' this alone, Har', get used to it."

Harry wriggled away, grimacing and rubbing his cheek, "So I'm beginning to see," he grumbled before flicking his wand out and casting some kind of weird gel over them. It was a bit like someone had stuck his head in a fishbowl.

"This is the bubblehead charm. Eight hours of fresh hair, it's completely sealed. No smells, no poison gas, no smoke, you can even go underwater with it," Harry explained as he prodded the gel-like orb around Eggsy's head, watching as it bent, rather like a balloon, under his finger before Harry pulled away. He swallowed and made his way towards the stairs at the end of the corridor. "This way. The kitchen... it's downstairs," Harry explained as he made his way down.

Eggsy trailed after him, feeling an odd churning in his gut as they came to a small similarly yellow and white foyer type area with two doors, one was open showing a white and jade green bathroom, the other was a heavy double hinged oak door with a plaque featuring a mermaid frolicking across the waves, the word 'KITCHEN' embossed over it in bronze.

Harry opened his mouth to say something, but, sensing another attempt to talk him out of it, Eggsy placed a hand on his shoulder and shook his head when the wizard finally looked at him. Harry hadn't left him when he went back home, and he had been fortunate enough not to be confronted with Katie's dead body, or his Mum's. Just... a silent witness to the death of both. Katie at his mother's hand. His Mum with a knife to her own wrists in the bathtub. He hadn't had to take their bodies to the burn sites afterwards. He hadn't even _seen_ them. Hadn't been responsible for them. But now Harry had to deal with his dead son, the son he killed, and Eggsy wasn't going to let him face that alone.

Harry nodded in defeat, reaching up and gripping Eggsy's hand for a moment before letting go and pushing open the door.

 _ **000**_

Eggsy sighed staring up at the canopy of Harry's spare bedroom, the day had been a loss from the very start and it was fast approaching the wee hours of the morning. They had cleaned up the kitchen, and Harry hadn't said a word since. He had taken... well, he left the house with his son in his arms and went to the park outside. Eggsy trailed behind him as the wizard gently laid his son on a slab of stone that was once probably a utility access point, now no longer in use. And then burned him.

Harry completely zoned out after that, Eggsy had to strip him of his soiled jacket and add it to the pyre, and when it finally burned out, he steered the wizard back into the house. As soon as the door closed behind him, he... let out a weird kind of shuddering mix of a sigh and a whimper before his wand was out, and the small droplets of decay that decorated the hardwood floor were syphoned off and vanished. He was on a mission then, half manic, half unnaturally stoic as he moved back down to the kitchen and _cleaned_.

Eggsy _tried_ to talk to him, but Harry was either ignoring him, or not _hearing_ him. Either were possible given his mental state right now. He didn't just stop at the kitchen though, he went through every room in the house, cleaning, dusting, and airing. He replaced the table cloths, the net-curtains, all the bedding, chair covers, he polished silverware, ornaments, photoframes, floors. He was cleaning better than most professionals, with an almost obsessive compulsive need to just keep moving.

The only time he did speak was when he presented Eggsy with a beautiful room on the third floor done in shades of brown, cream, and tarnished gold. Apparently a guest room and where Eggsy was supposed to be staying. Harry told him to make himself at home, showed him where the bathroom was on that floor before going upstairs.

Eggsy hadn't seen him since. And when he warily crept up the stairs, he saw two bedroom doors open. One in shades of green and gold with a strong forest motif that he assumed was Harry's judging by the bed and what little furniture he could see. The other... Bright colours, toys, books, a small bed, and Harry sat on the floor leaning against the foot of said bed, a battered stuffed wolf clutched tightly to his chest as he curled in on himself, shaking silently.

Some things weren't meant to be shared.

Eggsy returned back to his room, trying to ignore the guilt that rose up in him like a fist. Harry wouldn't want company right now. He took a long shower, dragged on a pair of sweats, and crawled into bed just after midnight.

But sleep just wasn't happening. He'd been staring at the canopy of the four-poster bed for the last three hours but it was just...

He sighed, kicking aside his bedding.

Making his way out of the guest room, he climbed the stairs and could only sigh in relief when he noticed Teddy's room was empty. He made his way up the rest of the steps and silently nudged Harry's bedroom door open. He was wide awake as well, curled up ontop of his blankets, staring at the canopy on his own four-poster bed, eyes red rimmed and puffy from crying, he wore a mixed set of red fleece pyjama trousers and a cream button up shirt with little gold dots on it. The stuffed wolf between his fingers.

"Can't sleep either?" Eggsy asked quietly as he closed the door behind him.

Harry's mouth twitched a little, and he shook his head, not saying anything. The chav slouched over and crawled onto the large double bed, nudging Harry to one side. "Scooch over then," he said as he dragged the covers up. Harry shared at him mutely but let Eggsy pull the bedding out from under him and then toss them over him, "Not gunna get much sleep if you wake up freezin' yer bollocks off, bruv," he scolded as he fussed, tucking the wizard in a little before rolling over, putting his back to him and burrowing down.

"Eggsy?" Harry asked quietly.

"Yea?"

A hand touched his shoulder, so lightly he almost thought he imagined it.

"Thanks."

"Dun mention it, bruv. Get some sleep, yeah? We're safe here."

The bed shifted and Eggsy fought not to tense when he felt Harry press his back against his, drawing the blankets up a little more firmly, the wolf tucked against his chest.

 _ **000**_

"It seems as though Arthur has put a hit out."

"On whom?"

"Harry James Potter, age twenty-six, British National, bloodtype O-positive, formerly a resident of Number 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. No surviving family, lists one dependent, a godson, Theodore Remus Lupin, aged nine. Interesting to note is that Mister Potter is the godson of notorious mass murderer and escaped convict Sirius Black, he was also wanted for questioning regarding those terrorist attacks in 2007. Percival had the mission to retrieve him but could find absolutely no trace, even of his maternal Aunt and Uncle whom have been his legal Guardians since November 1991 after his parents deaths. A year later the warrant for his arrest was removed, and he received royal honours for ' _tireless efforts in anti-terrorism_ '."

"Any word on _why_ Arthur wants him dead?"

"Not as such. But what I was able to get out of the database before I was found suggested that Mister Potter had managed to piece together the truth about V-Day. There were firm orders to collect his ' _data_ ', and destroy it along with anyone who may have seen or been informed of it. He seems to have some form of protection at least. Gawain was killed during the first attempted hit. Attacked from behind. Somehow they managed to offline his dermal tracker as well, and were smart enough to both destroy his glasses, and leave them behind."

"Interesting. Who else is set to deal with the young man?"

"Tristan's been given the mission."

"Hm, perhaps we should lend a hand."

"With all due respect, we have more important fish to fry right now. Valentine is still out there, as well as his machine, and all of those hostages. We can release the evidence ourselves once we've ensured their safety and the destruction of that machine. One particularly intelligent, if ballsy, young man doesn't matter by comparison."

"Clear headed and brutally logical as always."

"Someone has to be around here."

"What is your opinion, Your Majesty?"

"Bring the boy in, Galahad. It has been a long time since last we saw one another, he and I. Sir Potter will be most helpful in our efforts to oppose this new tyranny."

 _ **000**_

 **Ahaahahah, plot hammer anyone? XDDDDDD**


	6. Chapter 6

**Queensmen**

 _ **000**_

 _In the wake of a V-day that went off without a hitch, Harry Potter picks up the pieces of a broken London and hunts for a reason why, attracting all manner of attention, from all manner of people. Slash. AU. Non-Kingsman!Eggsy._

 _ **000**_

 **Chapter Six**

The next day, Eggsy wakes alone, Harry's side of the bed long cold. After dragging himself up, and staggering down to the guest room where his stuff was, he got dressed and made his way down the stairs.

"Harry?" he called curiously, the house, lovely as it was, was just a _tad_ bit creepy when it was so quiet like this. A lot of London was like that these days without all the cars, but you could always hear dogs barking, birds singing, the sound of trees, and loud music from whoever was near-by to combat the queer silence. In this house... it was like they were cut off from the rest of the world.

"In here," the wizard called, making Eggsy change course from heading towards the kitchen to go into the dining room and pause, hovering in the doorway, unsure of what to make of the scene he just walked in on.

That fucker was laid out on the dining room table, buck-ass naked, Harry was hovering over the side of his neck with a slightly bloodied kitchen knife, next to him was a chair with a plate splattered with a few spots of blood and several metal things. Eggsy cautiously ventured closer and tried not to be creeped out – or stare too obviously at the old dude on the table. Asshole he may have been alive, but under that snappy suit was a set of killer abs. It was very hard not to admire.

Though he never ever let on to Dean any, Eggsy was known for playing both sides. He was fairly easy with girls, as long as they could take a joke, were willing to drink a pint with him at the Prince with Jamal and Ryan, and could actually _talk_ with him instead of at him, he was pretty willing to date whomever. Guys though, he was a little pickier with. He only really had two types, cute little fems, or classy older dudes. And while Harry wasn't feminine, he was definitely cute. An' this guy... well, he was yummy under the suit, y'know, despite bein' dead an' all. And an asshole that hurt Harry. Actually, he wasn't _that_ great at all.

"What are you doin'?" he asked, leaning over to get a better look at what Harry seemed to be digging out of the asshole's neck.

"I was checking our mystery attacker over, you can learn a lot about someone's past like that, when I noticed that there were a number of surgical scars too small for keyhole surgery or anything significant. When I checked them over with a medical charm, it showed that there was metal shrapnel in there. So I opened him up and found those," he explained, pointing with his knife at the plate. "This one should be the last of them," he explained as he took a set of tweezers and pulled out a small chip, and kept pulling as a long hair-thin wire followed.

"Trackers?" Eggsy asked before it hit him, "Oh shit! Trackers!"

"Relax. They're inert. Magic shorts out most electricals, that's why I told you to strip him before I shrank him," the wizard explained as he dropped the chip onto the plate. "You know more about this stuff than me, think you can figure them out while I finish profiling our guest here?" he asked, pointing his knife at the asshole while staring up at Eggsy expectantly.

Well, there was just no other answer to that, was there?

"Course I can. You got a computer or anythin' here?" he asked, only for Harry to shake his head.

"No, but I have connection terminals in the Drawing Room on the second floor – they're wired into the house next door. You'll be working off their power and internet connection. My laptop is in my bag. They're not looking for you, so go and grab what you need. I'll stay here," Harry assured him glancing down at the body.

The former trainee Marine nodded, "Right. Back in a few then," he declared, taking the plate and making his way towards the door.

"And Eggsy? Be careful."

He turned, but Harry was already bent over the corpse again. He grinned a little, pleased as he slipped out of the room with the inert tracking chips.

Progress maybe?

 _ **000**_

Harry's laptop was fuckin' great, Eggsy would know, he stole the best one they had at the store. But it didn't have everything he needed in order to check these chips. So he made an extended 'shopping' trip out of the house, nicking a trolley from the local Sainsburies as he passed, raiding three different computer stores, a laptop repair shop, Maplins, B'&'Q, and two different hard-ware stores before making his way back to Harry's place.

It took him a week of examining the chips to actually figure out what was what. He was hardly stupid, but it wasn't like he was some kind of genius, or Tech nerd like on TV able to figure out what he was dealing with at a glance. Hell, he knew basic DIY home-repairs and how to rewire a few electricals – and defuse a bomb from army training. That was about it. But he got there eventually, with a lot of hard graft and research. Of the four chips, he was quickly able to pinpoint one major difference right from the off – one of them was made by someone else. The other three were all made from the same materials, same manufacturer, while the fourth, found in the asshole's neck, belonged to someone else, inferior metals, mass produced, etc. And, after a number of days trying to figure out what it did, he learned it had an entirely different purpose to the others.

While chip one acted as a basic tracking beacon, chip two as a personal satellite signal boost, and chip three as a health monitor; chip four was multi-purpose and much more sinister. Able to basically live-stream an audio feed that activated with the use of certain keywords, a strange ability to negate high-frequency vibrations, and self destruct – using the high-frequency negation and turning it around, thus super heating the soft tissues and exploding. Taking the Host's head along with it.

"Like shovin' firecrackers in yer skull. Pop! Brains across the ceiling," Eggsy explained bleakly, disgusted and impressed despite himself.

Harry nodded grimly, "And the chips were shorted out so there's little chance of tracing the signal," he concluded, dragging a hand through his messy dark hair.

"Anythin' on your end?" Eggsy asked, stretching out in his seat, draping himself over the backrest with his shoulderblades just hanging over the edge before pushing his weight down, the satisfying sound, and feel, of his spine popping and cracking filling the room. Ooooh, yeah, that felt good. He'd been bent over that laptop for _days_.

Harry huffed, folding his arms, "Oh, I learned a lot. But none of it very useful in the grand scheme of things. There was only _one_ useful thing, but it lead me into nothing but a head-scratching deadend."

Eggsy rolled his head back to grin at the wizard, was he pouting? That was adorable.

"Lay it on me, bruv," he encouraged.

Harry unfolded his arms and moved closer, "All of his equipment, from the signet ring, the maker's mark on his suit, the fucking hand grenade lighter and the bullet-proof umbrella had the same heraldry. But it all traces back to a tailor shop on Saville Row, London. A place called Kingsman," he explained as he leaned over Eggsy's shoulder to type on the laptop, bringing up google. Eggsy tried not to lean closer, he failed. Harry smelt like apple shampoo, the hot chocolate he had been drinking ten minutes ago, and something that was both slightly spicy and musky at the same time. "Eggsy, eyes front. You can sniff my hair later," Harry sassed without looking away from the laptop screen as he brought up the Kingsman Tailors, makers of fine bespoke mens' fashion since 1802, website.

Eggsy blushed hard, "Dunno what you're talkin' about, bruv," he denied poorly, mortified that Harry caught him and wishing the ground could swallow him whole. Harry grunted sceptically but dropped it as he stepped back, letting the chav get a look at the screen – and freeze.

"It's a pretty distinctive symbol, but it isn't raising any flags in the law enforcement data bases I have access to, not even MI.6," Harry explained, pacing in frustration behind him. "Running our assassin's face through the Criminal Record Bureau was equally useless. The man's a ghost. No records. When I looked into the shop, it says there's nothing there. But independent reports detail a significant number of planning applications, new builds, and proposed underground rail systems being denied in the area. Not only that, but the store owner, Chester King... someone else with no records, and a name that disturbingly dates back almost as far as the founding of the store. The heirs chosen either within the year of the previous Mister King's death, or just before it," Harry explained as he gestured with one hand, the other crossed over his chest as he practically wore a hole in the carpet with his going up and down. Eggsy would have found it amusing to watch, if he weren't so horrified.

He couldn't fucking believe it.

He _knew_ that symbol!

He dug into his clothing, groping under the two hoodies and polo-neck shirt he had on underneath, and tugged his Dad's medal off, snapping the chain by accident. The same medal he got given Post Humorously for saving his squadmates on some classified black ops mission in the Middle East. The one that posh wanker gave him when he was a kid because his mum wouldn't, _couldn't_ , take it.

He stared at the pale pink circle in the palm of his hand, the familiar golden rope ' **K** ' glaring up at him – perfectly matching the Kingsman ' **K** ' on the screen.

His _Dad_... had been an assassin for Valentine?

 _ **000**_

Okay, so that was a stupid idea right off. Valentine was younger than he currently was when Eggsy's father died, which meant that this Kingsman assassination group were well older than what Valentine had planned. Older than him even. Fuck, they were probably as old as their fucking shop thinking about it. Shit, this was some illuminati crap right here. Ancient school of assassination?

"Fuckin' mental," he complained as he scrubbed his hair in the shower.

And now Harry had some hair-brained idea to go and investigate the shop, _infiltrate_ it. As if these people _weren't_ trying to kill him. Fuck, Eggsy wanted to shake him until he rattled some common sense into the wizard; in what world did walking through the front door of an assassination organisation trying to kill you sound like a good idea?! Fuckin' hell. He was either going to start going grey from stress, or develop wrinkles.

Climbing out of the shower, he dried off, brushed his teeth, shaved, and changed into his night clothes; Harry was waiting for him outside, leaning against the wall looking thoughtful.

"You don't approve," he said without preamble, meeting his eyes.

Eggsy shook his head, "Bare stupid idea, bruv," he pointed out flatly, pulling a face.

Harry nodded slowly before pushing himself away from the wall, "Come with me," he requested before moving down the stairs. Eggsy almost sighed but bit it back, the wizard would explain, _eventually_ , he just had to be patient even if it was somewhat annoying to be left out of the loop. They headed into the kitchen where Harry opened the pantry door and stepped in. Okay, this was weird. Hesitantly, Eggsy stuck his head in, and saw the wizard spell open the floorboards, tapping his wand on them in a pattern until they just rolled backwards like a set of blinds.

"That is sick," Eggsy breathed, chasing after the older man as they went down the slightly dusty wooden steps.

"These sub-basements were created by my grandmother's brother, Alphard Black. He was... well, a thief for lack of a better word. One of those cat-burglar types," Harry explained as with a flick of his wand, a large stone room was illuminated, filled with neatly shelved and catalogued paintings, boxes, sculptures, and glass cases, each bearing their own little label. "He never lived in this house, but he reasoned that if he got caught, everyone would be so busy looking at _his_ house for the stolen goods they would never find it hiding beneath a house that didn't belong to him when the residents themselves were unaware. He had a strange sense of humour. I found it while I was renovating the kitchen, I returned most of what I could identify. I kept the things that were dangerous or couldn't find the original owners of."

Eggsy was pretty sure he was staring at an original Picasso.

Harry gestured to a side door, "This room is mine. I followed Alphard's example and began to store some things that I would rather no one else be able to find. Family heirlooms. Artefacts that _Wars_ have been fought over," he explained quietly before placing his hand into the small wall indentation. The door clicked open and Harry stepped in, spelling the lights on. Eggsy didn't want to think about how much trust he was being shown right now, if _wars_ had been fought over some of the stuff in this room...

The first thing that caught his eye was a white marble birdbath with weird symbols all over it. Then the glowing liquid he could see drifting mistily inside of it. A bookcase behind it was filled with old, crumbling leather bound books and scrolls – one of which was set above a bowl and seemed to be _bleeding_. That was _rank_.

Harry then presented him with long silvery cloak.

"My father's invisibility cloak."

The chav gaped.

An honest to fuck _invisibility cloak_?

"You're fuckin' with me," he breathed as he hesitated, Harry nodded encouragingly and held it out a little more insistently. Eggsy carefully picked it up and shivered, the fabric was cool and light, almost like sticking his hands in water. Harry stooped a bit and then scooped up a corner of it – throwing it _over_ Eggsy's arm.

" _Holy_ _ **shit**_!" His arm vanished.

"Invisibility Cloaks are hard to come by, but not impossible. However... This cloak was made with different materials to most, with different methods. It is... _unique_. And priceless. Nothing can see you while you are under this cloak, thermal scans, ultra-violet, detection spells, muggle CCTV, enchanted eyes, X-rays, motion detectors. Absolutely nothing. You're hidden from even the eyes of Death itself," Harry explained solemnly as Eggsy eagerly threw the cloak over himself, tugging the hood up. He felt like a kid in a candy store!

He quickly moved away, his bare feet silent on the floorboards as he circled Harry, filled with an odd surge of heady recklessness.

"So you see, infiltrating the Kingsmen won't be dangerous for me," Harry explained, staring straight ahead at where Eggsy _was_ , assuming he was still stood there playing under the cloak – except now, he wasn't. He was sneaking up behind Harry with a... probably really stupid idea that was less of an idea and more just a mildly suicidal impulse. "The only one in danger is probably going to be you, as I can't just walk in under the cloak. Doors randomly opening and closing tend to clue people in on strange happenINGS?!" Harry squawked, jumping as both of Eggsy's hands landed on his sides and dug in, fingers mercilessly working against his ribs.

Eggsy roared with laughter as he fell back, dodging the irritable swipe from the wizard who whipped around, hands coming up to cup his ribs protectively.

"I give you the power to become invisible and the first thing you do is try to tickle me?" he demanded, sounding as if he didn't know whether or not he should be amused or irate.

"Would you have rathered I done somethin' else?" Eggsy asked suggestively, still snickering. The bland look Harry shot him was three parts unamused and blushing for the rest of it. Well, he didn't say _no_. He stifled his laughter and snuck forward again.

"As I was _saying_ ," Harry stressed, still looking wary and glaring at what was probably Eggsy's adams apple as they stood chest to chest, the smaller of them completely unaware.

And then he stepped back, hands fisting as he firmly shoved them in his pockets, scowling at himself.

Tickling Harry when he wasn't expecting it was one thing, but... grabbing his ass was a big difference. What was he even thinking, coming up with that kind of crap? It wasn't right. Plus, he wasn't sure if he wanted t- no, he _wanted_ to do it, grab his ass in both hands and give both cheeks a good squeeze, but now was _hardly_ the right time and – and – call him mushy, but he wanted to do this _right_. After the shit they'd both been through, they both deserved it. So, while he wanted to be with Harry and do everything that entailed; while he really, _really_ wanted to... he didn't unless Harry was willing and aware of it. It wasn't any good if your partner wasn't just as enthusiastic or interested as you were.

And right now, Harry had no idea, continuing to explain his plan while defensively clutching at his ribs as if expecting another attack at Eggsy's hands. "As I was saying, I just need you to get me in there," he explained slowly. "Once I'm in, I can release various tracking golems around the building and onto the staff. I can then record every conversation that takes place within the building, and if needs be, even track the people who get tagged," he said as he slowly unhunched and moved away to one of the shelves where he by-passed a... oh rank, an _ear_ in favour of a small collection of little golden M'n'Ms. "Those are a prank toy my brothers made, Extendable Ears. They're pretty much cans on a string, I've just adjusted the enchantments and linked them to these spider golems. Anything the golem picks up on, the ear transmits, and then these Dict'a'quills will record," he detailed he flicked one of the M'n'Ms up and caught it before laying his hand flat, a tiny golden mechanical spider uncurling to delicately pick its way across his palm, it was barely the size of five penny coin.

"An' what? You just walk in and drop a bag of them on the floor like no one'll notice?" Eggsy asked, finally deciding to strip out of the Invisibility Cloak. Having Harry talk to him without actually _looking_ at him was oddly disheartening, and annoying.

Harry smirked at him, "Of course not," he assured him before flicking his wrist, twisting it until his palm was laid flat again – and three spiders tumbled over his fingers. "They have inbuilt _Gemini_ spells on them. They'll keep multiplying for about an hour after I activate them. I need to only find a discreet place for two or three and within an hour I'll have three hundred all transmitting any audio signal back to this house," he explained with a viciously dark smirk on his lips.

Eggsy swallowed, "Anyone ever tell you yer _bare_ terrifying, bruv?" he asked weakly. If Harry ever thought to become a super-villain...

Harry snorted, and clutched the mechanical spiders, deactivating them with a flex of magic, "It's been brought up before," he admitted smoothly, scattering the now balled up creations back on the shelf. "Unfortunately, when you spend much of your teenage years growing up in a war zone on the front lines and in the shadowy secrets of rebellions and revolutions, there are some _personality defects_ you just can't shake."

"Personality defects?" Eggsy echoed, doubtful and disgusted in equal measure. There was _nothing_ defective about Harry, and he'd fight anyone who said otherwise.

"Obsessive compulsive weapons development, paranoia, secret hoarding and ferreting, post traumatic stress, a certain disregard for the rules – or the laws in my case, lack of care regarding my own personal safety, knee-jerk ruthless violent reactions in defence of others... Those kinds of things. Just... often taken to a socially unacceptable extreme," he admitted with a wry smile that was half innocence, amusement, and bitterness. Harry knew he was messed up, and accepted it. It was one of the few ways of living with, and regulating, his behaviour.

Eggsy scratched the back of his head, unsure of how to reply to that. It wasn't often that people were so honest to him, especially guys. If this was a girl he was trying to land in bed, he'd try to soothe her, throw some attempts to make her feel good about herself because it couldn't have been _that_ bad, she was fine, functioning, she was managing, she was stronger than she was making herself out to be. Even if this was some guy he was trying to get with, he'd have probably done the same, though probably tried to distract them with something sexual first. But having _Harry_ admit to that kind of emotional and mental vulnerability... it was kind of... it felt a little too much, too close, too... intimate. He didn't know what to say, or how to react.

"Don't worry about it, Eggsy," Harry assured him, nudging his arm with an understanding smile when he was quiet for too long, "We're all fucking messed up. Death Day was just... another tragedy in a long line of them for me and 'Mione." He shrugged, "I'm pretty much semi-sociopathic these days," he admitted blandly.

"No you're not," Eggsy refused harshly, gripping his arm tightly. He'd _seen_ how torn up Harry had been about Teddy; how he sobbed in his sleep and murmured names; how he sat with people who were wall-eyed and not all there, and spoke to them until they came back; how he played with the children and hugged them tightly when they cried – he was _not_ sociopathic. "You're just shuttin' yerself down, trying to protect yourself. You're bottling it up, bruv. That's not healthy, but it's keeping you going," he pointed out, shaking the smaller wizard firmly, meeting his gaze head on. "You keep going, because what else can you do? There's too many people relyin' on you to just break down an' shit. You can't _mourn_! You ain't a sociopath, Harry, not even close."

He slowly shook his head, "But... I have to be. I don't... I don't even cry anymore," he admitted quietly. "I don't _feel_ anymore. I think of Teddy and there's _nothing_. Just... a vague... feeling of loss. Like I _should_ be sad but I can't quite get there. And... Hermione... I can't even – she killed her husband and her children, and I can see it killing her inside but I can't relate, I can't empathise, and I used to be able to and now I can't and - "

Eggsy dragged him in close, crushing him in a tight hug, hand knotting into his hair. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, **fuck**.

"It's disassociation, Harry. Emotional detachment an' disassociation. Probably depression too, an' a whole bunch've other dangerous shit that I don't know an' you should prob'ly see a therapist about," he managed to get out, fighting to keep his voice level as it began to really hammer in just how much help Harry actually needed but couldn't get because they were now neck deep in this goddamn clusterfuck.

He felt Harry's breath puff against his neck, "Well, it's going to have to wait until we topple Valentine and his secret Assassination Team," he said, voice muffled by Eggsy's hoodie.

He nodded, pressing a kiss to Harry's forehead, "Yeah. But as soon as it's done, we're takin' you to a professional, yeah?" he demanded, stepping back and gripping Harry's shoulders tightly, staring him full in the eye. Not letting go until the wizard agreed with him, nodding with wide slightly surprised green eyes.

"Yeah."

Eggsy nodded and let him go with a deep sigh, "So. When're we doin' this?"

 _ **000**_

 **Oh my god this went in completely the opposite direction to how it first did. Originally I had this chapter end with Eggsy and Harry finally hooking up after a few hijinxs involving Eggsy getting entirely too brave under the invisibility cloak and sneaking in a few gropes until Harry got annoyed enough to demand that he at least buy him dinner first.**

 **I didn't like it because it was way too rushed and didn't fit with the tone of the chapter, so I rewrote it – AND THEN THIS HAPPENED AND WHAT THE FUCK THIS IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE! Still good though, I like it better because plot and character development and** **slow** **building meaningful romance as opposed to 'cock goes where?'. But still, they grabbed this chapter and wrenched it in a different direction like whoa.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Queensmen**

 _ **000**_

 _In the wake of a V-day that went off without a hitch, Harry Potter picks up the pieces of a broken London and hunts for a reason why, attracting all manner of attention, from all manner of people. Slash. AU. Non-Kingsman!Eggsy._

 _ **000**_

 **Chapter Seven**

"This is fuckin' insane, bruv," Eggsy hissed under his breath, hands fisted nervously in his pockets where Harry's debit card was practically burning a hole through his leg. Stalking nervously down the increasingly fancy streets of London towards Saville Row he felt he was justified in his first assumption of Harry being a posh-git. Just... not in the way he originally thought he was. Harry was fucking _loaded_. Rolling in it. His dad had apparently been Old Money, some kind of Lord at that! And his Godfather a childless Earl that passed away in Harry's mid-teens and named the younger Wizard his heir.

Not bad for a kid who grew up in a cupboard under a flight of stairs in upper middle-class Surrey he had flippantly remarked with a bitter smirk as he handed over not only his bank card, but also the PIN to _use_ it. Harry had more money than most football players, and he'd just handed it to him, pretty as you please, as if it were a fuckin' – no, he treated fuckin' _text_ _books_ with more care than he'd just shoved that square of plastic in Eggsy's direction with.

He curiously checked it out at one of the few functioning ATMs and nearly shit himself. That was more money than he had ever _seen_ , more even than the time he caught Dean counting up drug money.

And Harry just gave it to him, absolutely no fucks or concerns that Eggsy might do a runner, and told him to go and buy a suit. And while money may not have had as _much_ value as it used to, people were still trying to scrape together what little of the world they had left, normality was a precious commodity that people clung to desperately, often to their own detriment, that meant money still having some kind of power, even though trade was beginning to take over. Still, Harry had a ridiculous amount of money.

Which, of course, brought them here. Eggsy complaining to thin air, Harry so close behind him that Eggsy worried he was going to trip over him, and walking into the belly of the beast.

Into Kingsman Tailors.

"Shut up, and calm down," Harry hissed as they finally came to a stop outside the shop itself. One of the few on the street that hadn't been either vandalised or looted. Hardly noteworthy when you considered what kind of shop it was, but _very_ telling when you knew what was actually hiding inside. Eggsy wondered how many people had died trying their luck on the property, only to meet one of Valentine's assassins. "Just... Go in, get fitted, say you're going to a wedding or something, got a new job, whatever. Just, normal. Remember, if anything goes wrong, I'll get you out. I promise," the wizard breathed against the back of his neck, making Eggsy shudder as he felt the green eyed man gently touch the side of his cheek.

Eggsy rolled his shoulders in acceptance, feeling Harry duck in front of him to one side, and then begin moving.

In a word, the store was ugly. Ugly yet classy.

Done in shades of brown, gold, and green, it was very much a masculine interior putting Eggsy in mind of old mansions and smoking houses and how he'd always picture drawing rooms belonging to gentlemen like in My Fair Lady. Armchairs in sepia coloured leather with green tartan pillows, a similarly coloured couch but with a green tartan of the same pattern acting as a throw across the back, handsome wooden furnishings with bolts of various coloured fabrics laid out across them in stacks of four, yellow lampshades providing the light that the curtained and mannequin filled windows could not, and a diminutive older man with thinning grey hair, glasses, and a long nose glowering at him from behind a counter, tape-measure draped across his shoulders. Behind him was a long fancy staircase that led to the second floor, and likely as not, the employees only area.

Eggsy had never felt more out of place before in his life wearing his multitude of hoodies, cap, baggy reboks, and muddy sneakers. Self-conscious and defensive and embarrassed all at once because no matter how much he tried to tell himself otherwise, other people's opinions did matter to him, at least in some small degree.

"Can I help you... sir?" the gentleman behind the counter asked delicately, a hand hidden out of view and probably wrapped around a weapon of some description, peering down his nose at the twenty four year old that seemingly had gotten lost and found himself dragged into the store by unfortunate circumstances.

Eggsy fumbled self-consciously, "Uh, y-yeah. Um, do you guys do walk ins? For fittings. I-I'm getting married," he stuttered nervously, lying through his teeth even as in the back of his head he wondered who the _hell_ he would get married to these days (the fact that Harry in a wedding dress flashed up in his mind's eye was very hard to ignore because it was doing some downright cruel things to his decidedly neglected libido right now). He felt Harry's hand press against his shoulderblade reassuringly as the older man's face pinched a little haughtily before he wrinkled his nose.

"We have no appointments today, sir. I can fit you in now, if you wish?" he asked neatly, the lines on his face much more relaxed now as he removed his hand from under the counter, and the unknown weapon. He doubted they had any appointments since Death Day, but like those dead-eyed fast-food workers that still showed up at McDonalds just to try and scrape some normality, just going through the motions of a normal day, even when they were still sweeping glass up from the floors, or scrubbing bloodstains off the fryers. It was a good act, one that he only knew was an act because he knew what to look for. Still, the tailor relaxed from hair-trigger murder to only somewhat less highstrung professional, Eggsy guessed it was the whole nervous 'Groom-to-be' act, people always got soft on others when they found out they were getting married, happy for them he guessed.

"Yes! Yes please – uh, how much..."

"For the measurements, only twenty five pounds. After that I will walk you through various cuts and styles, we will select a fabric, and if we have some templates in stock behind the preliminary pinning process. Prices will vary depending on fabric and cut," the tailor explained, ignorant to the golden spiders scurrying up the stairs behind him. "You have never visited a tailor before, I assume?"

He shook his head, swallowing nervously, "No. There was never a need for it really. Dress uniform was supplied by the base so..." he trailed off with an awkward shrug. His old dress blues _had_ been the nicest gear he had, but when he dropped out of training he had to return it along with the rest of his standard kit. "I figured, I'll splash out, get a really _decent_ suit, that way I can use it for like job interviews and stuff afterwards," he explained as he shuffled in his muddy sneakers, feeling dirty and out of place, and a little not-allowed in the fancy tailor shop. There would be job interviews somewhen in the future, somewhen. Just... not now. Not any time soon. But... yeah. Later.

The tailor quirked a small smile, "A sound idea, sir. If you would follow me into Fitting Room One?" he offered before gesturing him into the closest door on his right.

Eggsy nodded and shuffled in, barely catching a glimpse of Harry's shoe as the cloak lifted ever so slightly at the top of the stairs, he turned away swiftly so as not to draw attention to him.

He was intensely uncomfortable for the whole fitting, and his tailor seemed to be able to tell in that way that all discreet service staff in proper classy places could that he wasn't particularly keen on making conversation right now. His measurements were taken, and then he was shown a magazine where between the two of them they were able to pick out an English cut, high-peaked lapel suit that was formal enough for a wedding, but relaxed enough to be used for business wear.

It was when they were outside the fitting room once more, picking their way through various fabrics, that Eggsy felt a slight tickle on his ankle – one of Harry's spiders giving him the signal that he'd finished seeding the entire building with spies. Now they were just waiting on him to finish up and get home safely before calling the mission done.

The fabric Eggsy chose ended up being one of those ones that they did have some template patterns in stock for, so after another hour and a half of being perched atop a stool being pinned, Eggsy was finally stood once again in front of the counter as the gentleman carefully packed away his measurements and patterns.

"So, how much do I owe you?" Eggsy asked, feeling Harry's hand once again on his shoulder blade and relaxing ever so slightly in relief.

"Fabric, plus time, and labour... Before V-day," the man rattled off, making several calculations on his notepad, unaware of how both sets of eyes narrowed sharply on his name for _That_ day, "it would have set you back five hundred pounds. However, with the economy as it is, supply and demand, at this juncture, three hundred is more appropriate," he detailed looking up with a small sly smile.

The crooked grin Eggsy returned was half hearted and semi-suspicious at best.

He paid, and was given a receipt which he would need to hand in about a week later in order to collect his suit. His suit would be ready within five working days as they had no other customers at present.

Then they left.

Eggsy making sure to step into a block of flats a mile away and change into the clothes that Harry had hidden under his cloak. A new hoodie, cap, and shoes with slight inserts to make himself look taller, before heading to Grimmauld Place.

He collapsed in near hysterical relief when he closed the door behind them.

"I can't believe that worked," he babbled in shocked awe as Harry learned over him – cloak half open so only part of him was visible. Eggsy wondered how a strip-tease with invisible clothes would go? Weird af. But, seriously, Jesus, when was the last time he got laid? Had to be two months before he went down for Car Theft – so... a year and a half, just over, with only his hand on lonely nights. Talk about your bad case of blue balls! No wonder he was getting hot under the collar fantasising about Harry – beyond the fact that Harry was fuckin' hot and he fancied the pants off him, and on him, fully clothed and not, and just kind of everything about him. He was doomed. Completely doomed.

He laughed helplessly, throwing an arm over his eyes as Harry's expression twisted into one of confused mirth, not understanding him, but finding his behaviour amusing none the less.

"Are you... alright?" Harry finally asked as he stripped out of the cloak.

"Yeah, bruv. Just a funny five minutes," Eggsy assured him as he pushed himself upright and back onto his feet. "So, we good to go, Double-oh Seven?" he teased, grinning widely.

Harry gave him a confused look.

Eggsy stared.

"Wait, you... you dun'know who Double-oh Seven is?" the chav demanded in confused horror.

Harry grimaced, "I'm guessing some kind of movie character, but magic doesn't work around technology. DVD players don't survive long in this house," he pointed out even as Eggsy spluttered and kicked his shoes off.

"Right, well then, we're just gunna have to educate you, ain't we?" he demanded enthusiastically, "Those spiders'll take time to filter through their base an' start transmittin' back – so, we can educate you in the mean time!"

Harry let himself be dragged up the stairs, smiling a little bemusedly, but not having the heart to try and talk Eggsy out of something that obviously had him so excited. Who knew, maybe it would even be interested.

 _ **000**_

As much as Eggsy wanted to sit with Harry and watch all of his favourite old spy movies, neither of them really could. Harry had tons of papers, messages, and reports from up and down the country from his friends, Hermione, and various other survivor camps pulling together and following the model he came up with – just because he was no longer in the public eye didn't mean he had stopped managing things. And while he steadily chewed his way through the ocean of papers upstairs, Eggsy himself had to monitor the quill room to make sure they didn't miss something important and time-sensitive that transmitted back to them from the spiders. It was boring as fuck, but it had to be done, and it wasn't like he had anything else to do while Harry was arguably safer than anyone else in England right now. No need for a bodyguard to be honest. (He wondered why Harry bothered to keep him around but tried not to read too much into it.)

They ate in the quill room, Harry having levitated a couch and a small coffee table into the room so they could relax while observing the dining room table with the multitude of ever growing parchment piles. Harry seemed to be a little withdrawn though, thinking hard, occasionally Eggsy would catch him watching him from the corner of his eye, but every time he looked over Harry's attention was elsewhere.

After they'd eaten he went back upstairs to his papers, informing Eggsy that he would take over from him in a few hours – one person would be in the quill room at all times, twelve hours each so that they could have time to sleep and eat. He came back at nine pm so he could go and shower, but after sorting himself out and deciding to get an early night since the days of sleeping in were over... Eggsy found himself tossing and turning for more than an hour, unable to sleep at all. He had gotten _far_ too used to being in Harry's space, to sharing the bed with someone else. Eventually he gave up, dragged his bedding downstairs and made dropped down onto the couch in the quill room, before then proceeding to use Harry's lap as a pillow. He was fairly certain of that this _whatever it was_ between them would allow for that. The wizard snorted a little and shifted so his elbow wouldn't be digging into Eggsy's side, conjured a pillow that he tucked down on one side as an armrest, before proceeding to continue working on top of Eggsy's head as the chav lazily watched the endlessly scritching quills until he fell asleep.

He stirred only once or twice, maybe more. He felt Harry move his papers aside and at some point start gently stroking his hair, lulling him into an even deeper sleep. Once or twice he rose from the cobwebs of unconsciousness to spy Harry on the otherside of the room, reading a few of the finished transcripts the quills had been scratching out. There was always at least _one_ going at any given time. Did these people ever sleep?

Idly he wondered if Harry was even into guys as he found himself once more with his head in the wizard's lap, acting like this was kind of a bit like tying his own noose if he wasn't.

"Haven't really thought about it, to be honest," Harry admitted, fingers still hypnotically raking through his hair, "I haven't thought about things like that in years. I guess it would depend on the person, whether or not I was attracted to them."

Had he aid that out loud?

"Yes, you did."

Eggsy felt his face burn as he tiredly rolled over and buried his face into the wizard's stomach, curling into a ball of complete embarrassment even as the wizard cracked a rusty chuckle. Whatever it was they currently had between them was _fine_ , he didn't want to ruin that by demanding more, or making Harry uncomfortable just being around him.

Harry's hand stilled, trembling a little against the tip of his ear, "I've never done it before, but I don't think I would mind being with a man if..." he began slowly, awkward and honest because this was not exactly an _easy_ conversation to be having with another dude using you as bedding in your own home. "If it were you. Since I assume that's what you were driving at."

What.

Eggsy twisted in Harry's lap and shoved himself up onto his hands and knees to look Harry in the eye, had he just admitted that he –

The wizard was tense, a dark pink flush rising on his cheeks as he studiously avoided eye contact, his lips pale and pressed into a thin line. He was nervous, embarrassed, and, Eggsy realised with a jolt deep inside, _vulnerable_. He had purposely left himself open, vulnerable, in the palm of Eggsy's hand. Taken the risk that the younger man may not feel the same and plunged in anyway, despite all the shit they'd been through and lost. A surge of awe filled him as he realised just how much courage it must have taken the wizard to open up like this given what he knew of his life from the abusive childhood, and the hidden civil war.

"You wouldn't mind?" Eggsy echoed, a silly grin beginning to curl on his lips. Jesus Christ, Harry was so bad at this, he shouldn't be surprised. "You're fuckin' adorable, you know that right?"

Harry threw him a sour look, "It may have been said before," he admitted in tones of great pain that made Eggsy grin wildly, obviously childhood teasing, or friends/family roasting him.

"So, you ' _wouldn't mind_ ' being with a guy, if it were me, right?" Eggsy repeated, still grinning while Harry relaxed enough to roll his eyes and scowl at him.

"I believe that's what I said," he snipped defensively, not even tensing or blinking as the chav shifted his weight onto one arm and reached up to brush hair from Harry's face.

"So... you ' _wouldn't mind_ ', if I kissed you then, right?"

Harry sighed, "I'm never going to hear the end of this, am I?" he lamented even as Eggsy pulled him closer.

"Nope," the chav grinned.

"No. I wouldn't mind."

 _ **000**_

 **Okay, a shorter chapter than intended, but it was such a good place to leave it off.**


End file.
